Monday, October 31, 2011

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And Here It Is: The New Google Reader Revealed Top
screen_500Today, Google is rolling out its update to Google Reader which features the promised user interface overhaul, and, more importantly, the new Google+ integration. Now, Google Reader users can "+1" items directly from Google Reader to share it with their friends on Google+. This feature now replaces the "Share" and "Share with Note" options previously present.
 
Gemvara Hires Former Zappos/Gilt UX Guru Brian Kalma By Buying His Startup, Snipwits Top
brian-kalmaWhat do you do when you have more than a billion potential product combinations on your site? You hire a user experience (UX) guru. Gemvara, a jewelry e-commerce site that lets consumers custom-design their own jewelry, just acquired Snipwits, a one-man startup founded by Brian Kalma, who will now be in charge of the customer experience team at Gemvara. Kalma previously headed up UX design at both Zappos (as one of its first employees) and Gilt Groupe.
 
Urban Airship's Strategic Partnership With SimpleGeo Turns Into An Acquisition Top
Screen shot 2011-10-31 at 1.29.45 PMBack in November of 2009, former Digg Chief Architect Joe Stump and Social Thing founder Matt Galligan first publicly unveiled their new startup, SimpleGeo, which was slated to become the new infrastructure for location-based services. They called it the "Amazon Web Services" for location, offering products that make it easy for developers to build location-enabled web and mobile apps, including storage, context, API features, and polymaps. This morning Mike Arrington reports that SimpleGeo has been acquired by Urban Airship for approximately $3.5 million. In July, the two companies formed a strategic partnership which was intended to, put simply, provide better ways for developers to offer location-aware push notifications in their applications. Geo-targeted notifications were expected to be a big source of revenue for both startups, but it seems that it just made more sense for the companies to move forward as one rather than as two separate entities.
 
Techmeme Opens The Kimono On How It Chooses Headlines And Sources Top
techFor many, the methodology behind how technology news aggregator Techmeme chooses sources to link to for headlines has been an enigma. But today, founder Gabe Rivera has opened the kimono a little bit on how stories are chosen to be featured on the site. So bloggers and tech journalists take note. For background, Techmeme uses a set of algorithms as well as human editors to choose and curate stories to highlight. As Rivera writes, Techmeme's mission is "to highlight the essential tech news and commentary of the moment on a single page. The must-reads for anyone who needs to know where the industry is going, whether they're an investor, engineer, entrepreneur, executive, or enthusiast." That doesn't include biotech, cleantech or content that hardcore gamers might enjoy. Techmeme works to be comprehensive, fast, relevant, scannable, and story-rich.
 
HTC Rezound Appears On Video And Signage Ahead Of Launch Top
rezoundstoreBy now it's no secret that HTC's Verizon-bound Rezound will debut shortly, but the stars seem to have aligned recently, because we're absolutely swimming in Rezound-related news. Most notably, a video demoing the Rezound in action has begun to make the rounds, and it gives us our best glimpse yet Verizon's next holiday heavyweight.
 
Keen On … How Steve Jobs Changed Our World (TCTV) Top
Ooyala Backlot Web-deu 1Back in 2000, in the prehistoric age before the iPod, the iPhone or the iPad, the noted technology journalist Alan Deutschman wrote a very well received biography entitled The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. And now, more than a decade later, Deutschman is back on the Jobs circuit and has just authored what he calls an e-slice essay entitled How Steve Jobs Changed Our World. Jobs changed our world twice, Deutschman told me when I caught up with him on Skype. First of all, he revitalized American business in the dark days of the early 80's, Deutschman explained, seizing back the mantle of innovation from Japanese companies like Sony and even reviving the ideal of the American manufacturing industry.  Most of all, Deutschman told me, Steve Jobs changed American industry after 2000 by first grasping and then realizing the idea of what he calls "digital lifestyle" and design.
 
SEC Watch: Music App Developer Smule Raises $12 Million Top
smuleSmule, the music app developer behind I am T-Pain and others, has raised another $12 million in funding, according to a recent SEC filing. The company previously raised $13.5 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Granite Ventures, Maples Investments and Shasta Ventures. Smule is the developer behind a number of popular mobile music apps including I Am T-Pain, Ocarina, Leaf Trombone, Glee Karaoke, MadPad, and Magic Fiddle.
 
Why You Should Ban Laptops at Board Meetings Top
Businesspeople in MeetingEditor's Note: This is a guest post by (@msuster) Mark Suster, a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster at Bothsidesofthetable Back when I ran board meetings as a CEO, the biggest annoyance was Blackberrys. You would always be able to tell what was going on by seeing the unhealthy infatuation board members had with staring at their crotches. Somehow they imagined you didn't notice that they were glancing beneath the table secretly firing off one-line emails. Every entrepreneur I know bitched about it and the smartest boards banned Blackberrys. Fast forward to today. We now have ultra-lightweight laptops (MacBook Air) and totally available Wi-Fi connections. So every board meeting I'm at has laptops opened. They are just there to "be productive" and review your material. Um, yeah. This is a mistake. Read on to find out why and what to do about it ....
 
Hypothes.is: A Kickstarter Project To Peer Review The Web Top
Hypothes.is screensThe Web: never before has there been a medium where it was so easy to find so much information. And never before has so much of it been so wrong. Somebody needs to fact-check the Internet. But who? Dan Whaley thinks it should be you. Whaley, who founded the first travel website (GetThere) in 1995, is behind a Kickstarter project called Hypothes.is. With Hypothes.is, Whalen wants to tackle the problem of rampant misinformation by combining Web annotation technology with a reputation system and peer moderation. The project has raised $60,000 so far, and needs $100,000 by November 13th to get off the ground. (He explains the concept in the video below).
 
Onkyo Updates Receivers And Remote App With Spotify Support Top
f-1024-0Attention all Onkyo-using music lovers: if you've felt like your life has been too quiet as of late, a new update for the Onkyo Remote Android app may be just what the doctor ordered. Onkyo has announced that they have added support for Spotify Premium to their free app, and that a handful of their network-enabled receivers and home theater systems will be updated to play nicely with it.
 
New Mobile Ad Unit Lets Developers Promote Apps That Are "Coming Soon" Top
coming-soon-iphoneMobile marketing platform Appsfire is launching a new ad unit for iPhone that lets app developers promote the applications they're about to launch. The "Coming Soon" ad doesn't just announce the forthcoming applications, however, but can also gather early sign-ups from potential users through its "notify me" button.
 
The Google Analytics For Business Data, Chart.io, Raises $3.2 Million Top
chartY-Combinator-backed Chart.io, a startup that gives businesses access to enterprise level analytics tools for databases, has raised $3.15 million in a Series A funding led by Avalon Ventures with Bullpen Capital participating. This round brings the company's total funding to $4.38 million. Founded in 2010 by David Beyer and Dave Fowler, Chart.io is a "Google Analytics for Business Data," that helps companies analyze and track their critical data in real time.
 
Jawbone's Fitness-Friendly Up Wristband Appears In Online Stores Top
jawboneupblueJawbone CEO Hosain Rahman turned a few heads when he unveiled the Jawbone Up at this past year's TED conference, mostly because it seemed like such a radical departure from the usual Jawbone lineup. When speaking to our very own Sarah Lacy, Rahman promised that the Up would be available "soon," but we may be getting very close to a release. The health-conscious Up wristband has popped up very briefly in Apple's online stores and Jawbone's own website today, which means the official launch can't be too far off.
 
Startup School and the Instigation of Entrepreneurship Top
startup_school1If you've ever met Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston of Y Combinator (YC), you quickly realize that the incubator they run is like a family and they are its attentive parents. They have managed to put a very human face on venture capital, one that appeals to young engineers during their most insecure stage: when they have just begun, or are still deciding whether to begin, their lives as entrepreneurs. As the gateway to Silicon Valley - and truly, you'd be hard pressed to think of another singular starting point for this community's entrepreneurs (there's a reason Ron Conway calls it the "Harvard/Stanford of startups") - YC has decided not only to open its doors to budding entrepreneurs but to actually encourage more undecided youth to become entrepreneurs. This is the raison d'être for Startup School, an annual event that YC holds at Stanford (and which took place again this past Saturday). A large crowd of fresh-faced engineers fills an auditorium for eight hours to collect pearls of wisdom from notable technologists like Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin and (not ironically) Ashton Kutcher. And they walk away feeling more confident about starting companies themselves, and not coincidentally, leaning towards opting for YC to do it.
 
Kinect SDK Launches In Early 2012 (We Peer At Past Hacks) Top
Fresh on the heels of its envisioned future video, Microsoft has posted an inspiring portrayal of the Kinect to YouTube. The video outlines the somewhat unexpected uses of Kinect in its one-year history, including educational and medical applications, which is likely meant to boost awareness ahead of the commercial launch of the Kinect SDK. Developers have been hacking Kinect and creating new uses and applications for the platform since just days after its initial launch, but this marks the first time that companies will be able to profit off of their Kinect creations. According to CNET, the Kinect SDK will be available in early 2012 to anyone ready and willing.
 
Want To Show Off Your Halloween Costume? Upload it To Costume DB Top
Costume DB - Mini Edward Scissor HandsHave you picked out your Halloween costume yet? Are you trying it on right now? Is it one of those Anonymous/V Is For Vendetta masks? Good, snap a picture of yourself and upload it to Costume DB, a no-frills database for costumes. You can upload your costume pictures, and they get voted up or down. Its a no-frills site, but it fills a need this time of year. It's also a great place to show off how creepy you can dress up your kids—excellent Mini Edward Scissor Hands. Vote it up!
 
500 Startups Peels Back The Curtain On Its Third And Largest Batch Yet Top
96288v2-max-250x250It's Halloween, so it's the perfect day to unveil the newest group of 500 Startups' "little monsters". Yes, this is the name that founder Dave McClure and his partner in crime Christine Tsai give to all the rock star entrepreneurs that grace the halls of their Mountain View offices. 500 Startups, as you may have heard by now, is the early-stage seed fund and incubator program founded in 2010 by the globe-trotting angel investor, which seeds between $25K to $250K in each of its startups that meet its "Three Ds" criteria: Design, data, and distribution. The fall batch kicked off on October 10 and includes 34 awesome startups, which makes this its largest roster to date (the initial batch consisted of 12 startups and the second came in at 21, bringing 500 Startups' total to 174).
 
The Complete Guide To Disrupt Beijing (Day 1) Top
disruptTechCrunch Disrupt Beijing kicked off earlier today with our own Sarah Lacy interviewing Pony Ma, founder, Executive Director, Chairman, and CEO of Chinese giant Tencent. In the first interview Ma agreed to by a foreign journalist, Lacy and Ma chatted about Tencent's past to the role China will have as the web continues to grow and mature. Next up, TechCrunch's John Biggs took the stage to interview Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka, to chat about Rovio's plans for the future, Rovio's desire to become more than a games company, and why Angry Birds won't end up like Pac-Man.
 
Tumblr Acknowledges Its Growing Spam Problem, Says It's Doing Everything It Can Top
tumblrIs Tumblr facing a growing spam problem? For many regular users of the blogging platform, the answer is "yes." Although Tumblr hasn't taken to its own blog to provide a public update on its progress in fighting spam, it did recently address the concerns of a high-profile Tumblr user - the associate producer of NPR's Fresh Air, Melody Kramer, who maintains a blog for the popular program hosted on the Tumblr platform. To Kramer, Tumblr acknowledged that it's aware of a recent increase in spam blogs and is "doing everything we can to quickly suspend these blogs and to keep more of them from being created."
 
DeNA, GREE: Japan's Mobile Social Gaming Giants Report Impressive Financial Numbers Top
dena greeGREE and Mobage are brand names that don't ring a bell with too many people (yet) as far as markets like the US or Europe are concerned, but these mobile social gaming platforms are hugely successful in Japan. The Tokyo-based companies behind these homegrown gaming networks, GREE and DeNA, reported some big financial numbers today. DeNA (current market cap: US$6.4 billion) today announced sales reached US$457 million for the second quarter of this fiscal (through the end of September 2011), while operating income hit a mind-boggling US$203 million. That translates into 28% and 13% year-on-year growth, respectively.
 

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