Thursday, December 29, 2011

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Daily Crunch: Ambient Thing Top
1508Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: CrunchDeals: Get Yourself A Thing-O-Matic For $999 Japan Gets Wi-Fi Dispensing Vending Machines LG Prada 3.0 Makes Official Debut In Korea, Europe To Follow Ambient Field Conditioner Will Condition Your Ambient Field 3DS Sees Record Sales In Japan, Fueled By Mario Kart 7 And Super Mario 3D Land
 
12 Things That Won't Happen In Online Video in 2012 Top
online videoThere are no shortages of "predictions" articles, here I look at a dozen things that won't happen in the world of online video in 2012, even though they should. 1)    We Will Have Standards and Definitions (No, we won't) By the end of 2011, the online video industry didn't yet have a common definition and standard for a video view.  It also wasn't sure if the click-through-rate or completion rate would become the ultimate yardstick for success.  A lot of experts are coming out and saying that 2012 will mark the year where we define these standards and agree on one.  Personally, I think that is wishful thinking, 2012 is the year where we admit that we have this problem, but it won't matter, as online video advertising continues to grow despite a sea of confusion, smoke and mirrors
 
Gillmor Gang 12.28.11 (TCTV) Top
Gillmore Gang test patternThe Gillmor Gang goes enterprise in a conversation with Paul Greenberg, the eminence grise of the CRM, now Social CRM world. Gangsters John Taschek and Steve Gillmor decrypt Paul's latest report from the front.
 
Why We Should All Give Google+ The Finger Top
Screen Shot 2011-12-28 at 12.39.23 PM
"Google+ is about sharing the right updates with the right people - making sharing online just like sharing in real life. Just like in real life, sometimes you just want to hang out with friends. Hanging out on Google+, with your family, your friends, or new friends you don't yet know, is more than just multi-user video chat. It's about eliminating borders and bringing people together around the world. It's about people."
 
Blip.tv Just Raised $6 Million, But Where Is The Audience? Top
Blip.tv TrafficBlip Networks, which operates Blip.tv, is raising more money. According to an SEC filing, the New York City company sold $6 million worth of stock beginning on December 22, 2011 in an offering that could expand to as much as $11.1 million. Presumably, this is part of a Series D offering, since Blip raised a $10 million Series C in May, 2010, almost 18 months ago. Blip is trying to become a destination for indie online videos. But it is becoming increasingly hard for any video site that is not Youtube to carve out a niche for itself.
 
Bank Shuts Down Local Online Advertising Company WebVisible For Not Paying Debts Top
WebVisibleLocal interactive advertising firm WebVisible has shut its doors. According to a note sent from the company's CEO to employees, WebVisible ran out of cash, and Silicon Valley Bank is shutting the company down. WebVisible's software allowed advertisers to manage local online campaigns on Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. The company's services were offered directly affiliate partners to local businesses, franchisors, and national advertisers Previous WebVisible partners include AT&T, British Telecom, Yellow Pages Group of Canada, EarthLink, and The McClatchy Company, among others.
 
Find Out Which Brands Are Winning On Google+ With ZoomSphere (Hint: Android is #1) Top
ZoomSphere Launches Google Plus ChartsFacebook has AppData, Twitter has Twitaholic, and now Google+ has its own independent brand page rankings site: ZoomSphere. It shows which brands have the most followers, activity, +1s, shares, and comments, and slice the data by time, page category, and country. Oddly, the site doesn't rank user profiles like SocialStatistics does -- just brand pages. Still, by augmenting its existing charts for Facebook and Twitter, ZoomSphere could become a comprehensive resource for brands charting their own performance, assessing competitors, or scoping for potential partners.
 
Fab's Fabulous Year—Now Doing Over 100,000 Orders A Month Top
Fab 2011 timelineIn many ways, 2011 was the year of the pivot. One startup that successfully switched gears was Fab, which started the year as a gay social network and ended it a design-oriented e-commerce site. Founder Jason Goldberg created the Fab Timeline slideshow below to illustrate all the changes the company has gone through, from its pivot in February to raising $8 million in July, another $40 million in early December, and growing all along the way. But one slide in particular caught my eye. It shows Fab's order growth shooting up from just above 20,000 orders in July to about 40,000 in September and then jumping to nearly 100,000 in November. Orders in december continues to climb, Goldberg tells me, and the company is on an annualized revenue-run-rate of almost $70 million.
 
CrunchDeals: Get Yourself A Thing-O-Matic For $999 Top
Screen Shot 2011-12-28 at 5.04.42 PM Makerbot's Thing-O-Matic is pretty pricey - $1,299 for the kit and $2,500 for the assembled kit - but (and this is my professional opinion) it is amazing and everyone in the world should own one. That said, Fab.com has a special deal on Thing-O-Matics this week - $999 for the kit and $2,000 for the assembled device - one of the first and biggest discounts ever on the entire system.
 
Taleo's Recruiting Solution Processed 15% of Last Year's US Hires Top
TaleoOther than Salesforce, no cloud SaaS provider handles more transactions than Taleo. The stats the company revealed to me about its 2011 are staggering. The Taleo talent and recruitment solution helped enterprises hire 3.1 million people, roughly 15% of the year's US hires. It had 50 to 60 million visitors to the job listing sites and other services it powers. Bootstrapped but now publicly traded, Taleo serves 5,000 customers including half of the Fortune 100. When companies need to hire huge numbers of employees, they come to Taleo.
 
Subpug RSS Reader Looks To Pull You Away From Google Reader Top
LayoutAs far as web sites go, there's only one site I look at more than Google Reader. You're on it right now. There's nothing technically "wrong" with Google Reader, but when you look at it every five minutes, every day of your life, another RSS reader option is super exciting. Enter Subpug. It's a new RSS reader that just launched on Christmas and it's pretty slick if I do say so myself. It's aimed toward more of the light news reader, rather than someone like myself with thousands of subscriptions. Still, it gets the job done. You can choose from certain pre-subscribed options like Gadgets, Music, Fashion, and even Geek Humor, or you can build your own/import your Google Reader OPML. The set up process takes all of three seconds and you're ready to read, mainly because there's no sign up or log in of any kind.
 
Exclusive: Groupon Acquires Stealth Silicon Valley Startup Campfire Labs Top
grouponGroupon has continued its (talent) acquisition spree with the recent purchase of a hot Silicon Valley startup before they even launched - and with extremely little fanfare. We've learned that Campfire Labs, which was founded by ex-Googler Sakina Arsiwala (previously Head of International at YouTube) and her husband, social search technology expert Naveen Koorakula (previously at search companies like Inktomi, Yahoo and Picch), was quietly bought by Groupon.
 
Khan Academy Jumps To 4M Uniques Per Month (Up 4X From Last Year) Top
khan logoOh, how I love Reddit AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) posts. In almost all cases, the inherent down-to-earth nature of a community-driven interview leads the most interesting of people to open up in genuine, honest ways that they otherwise might not in a one-on-one interview. Plus, they're almost always jammed with all sorts of interesting facts and stats. Take this AMA with Khan Academy's founder, Salman Khan, for example. Currently the top post on Reddit, Khan has spent the last two hours detailing everything from their recent growth and his workflow to the team's plans for the future.
 
Does Microsoft Really Need A Windows Superphone? Top
WindowsPhoneRoadmapA leaked Windows Phone roadmap made the rounds earlier today, and if its contents hold true, then Microsoft will be going big on hardware when it comes time for Windows Phone Apollo to take the stage. Even though the budget-friendly Tango update will hit devices first, Microsoft has apparently made the development of "superphones" a priority for next year.
 
23andMe Snags GeneticScreening.com For A Mere $2200 Top
gattacashotQuick, how many pairs of chromosomes do you have? If your mind just drew a blank — or an image of Ethan Hawke fiddling around with tweezers in GATTACA — then you probably aren't alone. The answer, of course, is 23 pairs, for a total of 46 chromosomes. And it's what the name of well-funded genetic testing company 23andMe, which has raised some $52.6 million to date, refers to. Despite the reference (which may not be obvious to most people), that name isn't a bad one, as it makes an intimidating topic sound more friendly and accessible. But now the company has another option at its disposal that's a lot more straightforward (and SEO friendly, no doubt): GeneticScreening.com. As was first reported by DomainShane, 23andMe cofounder Anne Wojcicki bought the domain for a mere $2200 on Sedo in the last two weeks.
 
Crazy "Spam" Email About Print Cancellation *Is* Actually From The New York Times Top
Screen Shot 2011-12-28 at 11.24.33 AMIf you're a New York Times subscriber -- or even if you're not -- you may have received that following email this morning, implying that you have cancelled your subscription. Many many people did, it's all over the tweets.  Even though the email was sent from an address that had sent out legitimate emails in the past, "email.newyorktimes.com," it wasn't actually from the New York Times, as some of their more tech hipster reporters and their official Twitter account confirmed, "If you received an email today about canceling your NYT subscription, ignore it. It's not from us."
 
Verizon Customers Dealing With Third Data Outage In One Month Top
verizon=crashIt seems like December just can't end soon enough for the folks at Verizon -- we're getting reports that Verizon's data network is once again on the fritz. Like both other times this month, not everyone is affected, but I can safely say my little part of New Jersey is without data. Users on Verizon's support forums have reported similar issues in parts of Georgia, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, California, Virginia, Washington, Texas, and Maryland.
 
Kindle Accessory Maker Files Suit Against Amazon Top
M-EdgeM-Edge, a small Maryland-based company responsible for many popular Kindle cases, last week filed suit against Amazon. According to the Wall Street Journal, M-Edge claims that Amazon has repeatedly tried to change the terms of a contract put into place all the way back in 2009, and has bullied the accessory maker each time it fights back. In the original contract, Amazon was to receive a 15 percent commission on all sales that go through Amazon's Kindle store front. Apparently this wasn't enough for Amazon, who later requested an increase in commission to 32 percent and threatened to remove M-Edge cases from the store if the Maryland-based company didn't concede.
 
Geico Turns One Man's PR Trash Into Their Own PR Gold Top
GeicoAnd that, friends, is what we call seizing the moment. (Meme-ment?)
 
Keen On… Kurt Andersen: Why Nothing Much Has Changed In The Last 20 Years (TCTV) Top
Screen Shot 2011-12-27 at 10.32.39 AMWe all know that not much happens in the week between Christmas and the New Year. But less well know is how little has happened culturally in the last twenty years. Indeed, so little has happened in this time (except, of course, for all the all-important caveat of technological change), according to the writer and broadcaster Kurt Andersen, that we are still listening to the same music, watching the same sort of tv shows, wearing the same style of clothing, driving the same kind of cars and living in the same kind of homes as we were in late Eighties.
 

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