Wednesday, February 1, 2012

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Google Mobile Search Ad Requests More Than Doubled In 2011 Top
tastyAs more and more consumers user their smartphones for search, Google's mobile search and display ads are growing like crazy. As we reported a few weeks ago, Google's mobile ad revenues are expected to more than double from an estimated $2.5 billion last year to $5.8 billion in 2012. And today, Google is revealing a number of new data on the growth of mobile search ads and formats. Google's lead product manager for mobile search ads, Surojit Chatterjee, tells us that in December 2011 mobile search ad request volume was more than twice as high as it was in December 2010. Mobile search in general has grown five-fold worldwide in just the past two years, which is a rate comparable to the early days of desktop Google Search, he adds.
 
Deadpool Alert: Google Wave Goes Read-Only Top
poolEveryone out of the pool! Google is shutting it down. As announced late last year, Google Wave is now in the final stages of its life and became read-only yesterday. Come April 30 the Wave pool will be shut down forever. It was fun while it lasted.
 
Ad Retargeter AdRoll: We Quadrupled Revenue Last Year, Now Profitable Top
adrollAs online ad retargeting becomes more ubiquitous, retargeting startup AdRoll says it's growing quickly. The company wasn't willing to reveal exact revenue numbers, but it did share some statistics about its growth. AdRoll says it saw revenue grow 414 percent, while ad impressions served increased 400 percent. The company says it tripled the number of advertisers that it's working with 2,193 new accounts added for a total of 3,500. And it's profitable.
 
With Redesign, Foodspotting Aims To Be The Pandora For Food Top
foodspotting redesignCEO Alexa Andrzejewski would like you to know some things about Foodspotting: It's not just for sharing food photos. And it's not just for foodies. Andrzejewski has been saying this for a while now, but with the redesigned Foodspotting app launching today, she has a much stronger case. It offers what she calls a "Pandora-like" interface for recommendations, hopefully making it easier for users to find the food that they'll like.
 
The Trade Show Is Dead: Samsung Not Launching Galaxy S II Successor At MWC Top
imagesThe Samsung Galaxy S II successor will not be in attendance at Mobile World Congress. The company issued a statement this morning indicating that the phone will get its own event, one that's closer to its launch date. But don't worry that much for MWC. Samsung will still debut "exciting new mobile products." But just not the exciting new mobile product. Samsung is smartly holding its best cards until the time is right.
 
Garage Sale App Rumgr Raises $500K From Zappos CEO (And Others) Top
Screenshot_MapThree Zappos alums are trying to replicate the garage sale experience on your smartphone — and their startups Rumgr just raised a $500,000 seed round from a group of investors that includes Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. Co-founder Dylan Bathurst said the basic idea came from his own attempts at selling furniture before a move. When users open the app, they're presented with a list of goods that people nearby are offering for sale. If they see something they like, there's a public chat associated with each item, where they can ask the owner questions. And if you're ready to make a purchase, you can negotiate the price, then go to a private chat to work out the hand-off details.
 
AOL Beats The Street, Q4 Revenue Down 3 Percent To $577M Top
aolAOL reported better than expected fourth quarter earnings this morning. The company, which owns TechCrunch, reported revenue of $576.8 million, which is down 3 percent from Q4 2010 revenue of $596 million. Earnings came in at $0.23 per share, or $22.8 million, which is down 66 percent from $66.2 million a year ago. Analysts expected $0.16 per share. AOL says total revenue decline was its lowest rate of revenue decline in 5 years. While global advertising revenue was 10%, subscription revenue declined by 18%. AOl also saw a 15% growth in global display revenue and a 20% growth in third party network revenue.
 
Ecommerce Platform Shopify Acquires Mobile App Development Studio Select Start Top
selectShopify, which provides a turnkey e-commerce technology that lets anyone create a storefront online, has acquired mobile app and game studio Select Start Studios. The acquisition will be used to further Shopify's mobile commerce initiatives. While all Shopify stores already include mobile optimized storefronts and checkouts, the acquisition of S3 will bring over 20 new mobile-focused engineers to the Shopify team to continue developing mobile offerings for merchants.
 
Mint.com Launches Android Tablet App Top
mint_spending_androidMint.com, the financial service we first mentioned at TechCrunch40 in 2007 (wow, that seems like a long time ago), announced that they have launched a new native app specifically for 9 and 10 inch Android tablets running Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich. This new app, available in the Android Market, will join the previously available versions for iPhone, iPad and Android mobile phones. Curiously, there is no mobile web version (that I have been able to find).
 
The Birth Of An American Giant—Basic Clothing Sold On The Web Top
American Giant_LogoNothing is made in this country anymore. In terms of actual manufacturing, America is increasingly at a disadvantage. The logic of the global economy moves jobs overseas. Get used to it, we are told. Well, Bayard Winthrop thinks the conventional wisdom is wrong. He wants to bring manufacturing back to America, in the apparel industry, no less! His clothing startup, American Giant (gotta love the name), launches today. American Giant is starting small, with a line of basic sweatshirts made in Brisbane, CA. American Giant doesn't have any stores. It sells its sweatshirts only on the web, and soon will expand to other men's basics such as T-shirts, polos, and button-downs. While the cost of materials and labor would be cheaper in Asia, a much bigger portion of the cost of a shirt is distribution.
 
Facebook's Revenue Growth Strategy: Ad Targeting By In-App Behavior Top
Facebook Behavioral AdsFacebook has an answer to those wondering how it will justify its IPO price and keep revenues growing as it saturates key markets: a new behavioral ad targeting system. Facebook has been quietly rolling out the beta of "Open Graph action spec targeting" which allows advertisers to target users by what they listen to, where they travel, what they buy, and other in-app activity. These behaviors can more accurately denote conversion potential than a user's biography or interests, That means Open Graph action spec ad targeting could turn finding a needle in a haystack into shooting fish in a barrel. The targeting options could improve the ROI of Facebook ads, and thereby attract a new class of advertisers, get existing ones to spend more, and pull in dollars from search, display, and offline channels.
 
Wunderkit Launches Beta For Its Wunderbar-designed Productivity Platform Top
DashboardBerlin-based startup 6Wunderkinder has just launched their private beta for their productivity suite Wunderkit. This is an extension to their simple, yet well designed task list manager Wunderlist, which was acclaimed both by early adopters and users. With Wunderkit the startup is now taking a next step. They've stuck to the user experience that, while beautifully crafted on the one hand is surely tricky to get used to, and have taken their core task manager several steps further by wrapping a fully fledged social network around it. Whereas RememberTheMilk had been their primary competitor until now, the company is now directly competing with full virtual workspace apps such as Podio or Asana, all of them trying to re-invent peoples' work and organize their private and professional lives.
 
Best Overall Startup Dropbox Looks To The Future Top
dropboxDropbox took home two of the big awards at this year's Crunchies: Best Cloud Service and Best Overall Startup. Both times, CEO Drew Houston came backstage to talk about the company's growth and its future. When asked about what he's planning for 2012, Houston offered some very broad thoughts, saying that "one of the most exciting things that's happened" recently is the explosion of devices that peopel can use to access Dropbox from. So when he looks to the future, he says one of his big goals is to move further in that direction, working deeper into "the fabric" of people's everyday lives.
 
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner Says IPO "Didn't Really Change Anything" Top
jeff weinerLinkedIn's Jeff Weiner won this year's Best CEO award at the Crunchies, and backstage he talked about LinkedIn's big milestone from the past year — its IPO. "The event itself was memorable, but for us it was really just a stepping stone," Weiner said. It's a common theme from Weiner's interviews before the IPO, when he would dodge questions about the timing and emphasize that it was just another step in the company's growth. This time, Weiner added that he's proudest of the fact that "for us, it didn't really change anything.
 
Videoplaza Secures $12 million For Ad Platform Led By Qualcomm, Innovacom Top
21905v8-max-250x250With the huge rise in the consumption of online video it follows that services to monetize that video are becoming hot properties. To that end, today Videoplaza, a 'sell side' ad management platform for video, has secured a Series B round of $12million led by Qualcomm Ventures and Innovacom. The company previously received rounds from VCs Creandum and Northzone, which also participated, which means VideoPlaza has received $18 million to date.
 
And The Crunchie Goes To…Pinterest, Best New Startup Of 2011 Top
Pinterest_winsOnline pinboard Pinterest, the hot new startup that's growing at a phenomenal rate, won the Crunchie for the Best New Startup of 2011 at this year's Crunchies. (This, despite the fact that it actually launched in 2010). The reason? Crazy, crazy traffic and growth. In November, the site had reportedly seen a 2,000% increase in pageviews, according to comScore. That wasn't year-over-year growth, mind you, but the increase Pinterest had seen since June. At 421 million pageviews, the site had already surpassed more established players, like Etsy, for example. But co-founder Ben Silbermann stayed tight-lipped on the hard metrics behind Pinterest. In an interview backstage after the win, he declined to provide the number of users or even the number of pins. (There were "a lot," he demurred.)
 
Daily Crunch: Fine Tune Top
1536Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: Peavey Builds An Auto-Tuning Guitar FlatFrog Offers Up A New Multitouch Table Self-Guided Bullet Could Strike Laser-Designated Targets From A Mile Away Years After Being Dropped, ZFS Finds Its Way Back To The Mac Apple Is Totally Serious About That Stuff They Put At The End Of Their Emails
 
Jack Dorsey Defends Twitter's Tweet-Level Censorship Top
jack dorseyAfter Twitter creator, executive chairman, and product lead Jack Dorsey accepted the company's award for Biggest Social Impact at the Crunchies, TechCrunch's Alexia Tsotsis asked him about a recent, controversial decision to block individual tweets on a country-by-country basis. Will that hurt Twitter's ability to make a positive impact on the future?
 
Imgur Wins Best Bootstrapped Startup, Sees 1 Billion Pageviews Per Month Top
Imgur-2Here at the 2011 Crunchies, Imgur, the photo-sharing site made popular by the Reddit community, won the category of "Best Bootstrapped Startup." And given the traffic numbers the startup is seeing, it's easy to see why. According to Founder Alan Schaaf, the site sees 30 million uniques per month and a billion pageviews. (Yes, a billion!)
 
Congratulations Crunchies Winners! Dropbox Is The Best Overall Startup Top
Dropbox CrunchieThis year's fifth annual Crunchies Awards have just finished up at the classy Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and it was a smashing success. We poked fun #humblebraggers, got cussed at by Siri, honored former TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde, and gave wild monkey trophies to tech's greatest innovators. If you missed the event or our livestream, check out the full list of nominees and winners below.
 

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