Thursday, March 1, 2012

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Record Exec Says Google Music Is Losing Users. But Is It Worth Saving? Top
Google Music SadUsers are tuning out of Google Music, the search engine's foray into music cloud storage, streaming and sales. A high-ranking digital music executive told The Music Void that Google Music is losing users week after week, despite its preferred access to over 200 million Android installs,. Seems its lack of marketing, the missing Warner deal, and competition from iTunes Match and Spotify are taking their toll. If Google needs music to win mobile, it should put its weight behind this product. Otherwise, it's time to unplug.
 
Investors Push Zynga Stock Up 10% — Now It Can Make Money On Ads And Publishing Top
Screen Shot 2012-03-01 at 3.03.55 PMZynga is now officially launching its own web site for social games, and the move has got investors buying its stock. Shares are up nearly 10% as of market closing today towards $15 -- or 50% of the $10 price it went public at back in December. Why? The obvious reason is that this is a way for Zynga to lessen its reliance on Facebook. But Zynga is still using Facebook exclusively as its identity service and payments system, so it's not quite true to say that it's lessening its reliance on Facebook. That is, except for two things: publisher payments and ads.
 
There's Something About Bango: The Billing Company Behind Facebook, BlackBerry And Soon Amazon Top
andersonThere are a number of companies that offer carrier billing for companies in the mobile space -- that is, services that let people buy content on their devices and charge it right to their carrier -- but there is only one that has secured deals with Facebook, Amazon and RIM to do it: an unassuming, Cambridgeshire, UK-based billing and analytics company by the name of Bango. And while you may not know who they are, chances are that the folks at Bango probably know you.
 
Leetchi Secures $5.5 Million To Launch In The UK And Germany Top
82630v2-max-250x250France-based Leetchi, a group payment application along the lines of US-based WePay, has raised a series B funding round of $5.5 million led by Idinvest. The round also includes Leetchi's previous investors, 360 Capital Partners. The French company now aims to open in the UK and Germany and launch a new B2C service. Along with France, Leetchi will then be aiming at a combined Internet population of over 160 million users. Not quite as large as WePay's North American market but getting there...
 
Rewards Network Kiip Goes Self-Serve, Announces $100K Developer Fund Top
kiip logoKiip is making a big effort to recruit independent game developers today — it's launching the self-serve version of its advertising platform, and it has also created a $100,000 fund to help developers build and market their Kiip-integrated games. The startup has always pitched its rewards (such as free Pop Chips or Amazon Gift Cards) as a smart alternative to traditional mobile advertising, and going self-serve is a natural step for any advertising network tryign to reach a larger number of publishers. Kiip CEO Brian Wong tells me that until now, the company only worked with a "hand-picked" developers because it had to make sure that the growth in developers didn't outpace the growth in advertisers.
 
Tumblr On Its Self-Harm Blog Ban: Support Is OK, Glorification Is Not Top
angelina-jolie-skinny-oscarsTumblr is clarifying its sticky position regarding the new policy to ban certain blogs from its network. You may remember last week, when the company took the bold stance that blogs promoting self-harm, including anorexia, bulimia, self-mutilation and suicide, would no longer be allowed on its network. Today, the company is following up on the policy change to explain that it's not banning blogs that are engaged in "discussion, support, encouragement, and documenting the experiences of those dealing with difficult conditions," only those that are meant to trigger self-harm. But how will Tumblr know which is which?
 
Shutterfly To Buy Kodak's Online Photo Sharing Platform For $23.8M Top
shutterflyAfter filing for bankruptcy, Kodak is announcing that it will be selling off parts of its online photo services business Kodak Gallery for $23.8 million. The buyer? Online photo sharing platform Shutterfly. Basically, the terms of the agreement include the transfer of all Gallery customer accounts and images in the U.S. and Canada to Shutterfly. Kodak Gallery allowed users to upload photos and create public or private albums that can be shared, as well as printed. According to the company, Kodak Gallery currently has 75 million users. Kodak says that it will give customers who do not want their photos transferred to Shutterfly the opportunity to opt out of the transition process.
 
Ahead Of Launching Its First Title, Idle Games Poaches Zynga's Lead CityVille Designer Top
Screen shot 2012-03-01 at 10.51.11 AMIn September, social game developer Idle Games launched on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, declaring that they were on a mission to become "the Pixar of casual games." The startup's first title, Idle Worship, is a throw-back to Peter Molyneux and EA's Black & White, except, instead of finding it on a PC, Idle Worship will make its home on that social network everyone's talking about. Like Black & White, gamers get to play the role of a god, lording over villagers on an island in whatever way you choose -- you can be a vengeful god, or a forgiving one. Both in its first title, and in the games it plans in the future, Idle Games is looking to provide a better alternative to the stale social games already out there produced by the bigs like Zynga.
 
Wonder What Games Might Look Like On The New iPad? Check This Out Top
compareHDThe new iPad, if rumors are to be believed, has an extremely high-resolution screen — better than most monitors and packed into a quarter of the display space. The result? iPhone 4-like Retina goodness. But it's actually kind of hard to visualize this, since most pixel-dense displays are small, and we're used to a certain level of aliasing on our bigger displays. Game developer Pixels on Toast has done the work of preparing their upcoming game Food Run to the expected 2048x1536 resolution. The results may help you get into your head just how many pixels we're talking about here.
 
Graphicly Opens Publishing Platform To Everyone, Looks Beyond Comics Top
graphicly analyticsAfter a month long trial period, startup Graphicly is throwing the doors open to its digital publishing platform. Since incubating at TechStars in 2009, Graphicly has shifted strategy. Co-founder and CEO Micah Baldwin says the company was first conceived as an "iTunes for comics" — the place where existing comics publishers could sell the digital versions of their titles. However, Baldin says he found that the marketplace strategy was too limiting. (It probably didn't help that competitor ComiXology scored early deals with the two biggest publishers, DC and Marvel.)
 
How The Cult Of Zuck Will Survive Sheryl's IPO Top
Facebook F fmc printA tug of war between innovation and monetization as Facebook grows could dilute The Hacker Way, says a paywalled piece from CNN Fortune. But a plan hatched since it filed its S-1 to IPO. Rather than sacrifice the user experience for revenue or vice versa, Facebook is merging the two. Content is being transformed into ads, and those ads are being blended into blank spaces and feeds where they're less obtrusive. Scaling a company from 200 20-somethings to 3,000 30-year olds is no cakewalk. If the plan works, though, Facebook could bridge the gap between engineering and advertising, make the company feel a whole lot smaller, and let The Hacker Way live on.
 
Microsoft: Windows 8 Consumer Preview Downloaded 1 Million Times In One Day Top
milMicrosoft's official Win8 Twitter feed has confirmed the inevitable: Win8's Consumer Preview, a beta version of the new operating system, was downloaded 1 million times since launch. To put this into perspective, Microsoft sold seven copies of the software a second in 2010, and, yesterday, gave away 11 copies a second.
 
TCTV: In the Studio, Morgan Missen Says Technical Recruiting Is Often Too Transactional Top
Screen shot 2012-02-29 at 9.48.14 PMEditor's note: TechCrunch contributor Semil Shah currently works at Votizen and is based in Palo Alto; you can follow him on twitter @semil "In the Studio" rolls on this week with a guest who studied computer programming, went on to be a technical documentation writer, and was the first person in her family to attend to college, after which she moved to Silicon Valley and went to handle technical recruiting for some of the biggest consumer technology companies in the world.
 
Corporate Censorship Reborn: PayPal Bans Erotic Fiction Top
sexyboxThe independent book world has been beset on all sides recently. When the first e-publishers began to go to bat for independent and self-published authors, the writing world rejoiced. For too long the rapacious vanity press had taken their money and offered little in return. There is very little up-front investment for self-published authors except for a good story and a little HTML gumption and Amazon, PayPal, and Barnes & Noble (and Apple) made it easy to publish anything, any time. The market was the critic and the writer reveled in the spoils. Then things changed. Most recently Seth Godin bumped up against Apple's publishing guidelines when he added links to Amazon books that Apple does not sell inside his self-published e-book. There can be arguments on either side for Godin's position that the contents of his books are his and his alone to control. However, another brewing scandal points to outright censorship.
 
One Year Post-Pivot, Fab.com Is On Track To $100M In Revenue In 2012 Top
fab-napkinOne year after the infamous Fab.com "reset" from a social network for gay men to a powerhouse design shopping site, CEO Jason Goldberg is taking a look back on the company's progress. Staying true to the startup's "one thing" as he calls it (design, obviously), the company has grown to more than 2.5 million members, up from 1.5 million at the end of last year. That's 67% growth in the first two months of 2012, Goldberg notes. And last month was Fab's best yet, beating out both the holiday sales of December and the pre-holiday rush which contributed to November's record-breaking month.
 
TechCrunch Giveaway: Samsung Galaxy S II, Case, And Gift Card #TechCrunch Top
samsung_galaxy_s_iiWe have another exciting giveaway for all of you this week. Earlier this morning, Jordan wrote about our friends over at Picksie and the launch of their new Android app. For those who don't know, Picksie is a location-based app that helps you figure out what fun things there are to do around you. However, you won't be able to enjoy it without a solid Android phone. With a huge thank you to Picksie, we have a brand new Samsung Galaxy S II to give away, along with a leather case and a $25 gift card for app downloads. The winner of this giveaway will win all three of the prizes.
 
Zynga Uses Facebook (!) To Launch A New Platform For Its Games — And For Other Developers Top
Screen Shot 2012-03-01 at 10.57.44 AMIs Zynga going to leave Facebook to start its own site for gamers? Whispers about this have circulated for years, and today we have an answer: yes and no. Yes, Zynga is starting its own site for games. But no, it's not leaving Facebook. At least not for the foreseeable future. Instead, it's launching a new platform designed to house both its own games and ones from other developers. And, you log in with your Facebook identity, and you pay using Facebook Credits. The site, available at Zynga.com, is a social gamer's dream. The types of social channels that Zynga has been testing and refining are all in place. And then some. Instead of just pulling in your Facebook friends, it includes ways to become friends with other people on the site who you're not connected to on Facebook. People who you want to play with, anyway, that it calls zFriends.
 
Keen On… Anand Rajaraman: How Walmart Wants To Leapfrog Over Amazon [TCTV] Top
KeenOnAnandAnand Rajaraman is one of Silicon Valley's less well-known superstars. A successful serial entrepreneur, the Indian born, Stanford educated Rajaraman co-founded Junglee in 1996 which he later sold to Amazon for $250 million. After running Amazon's technology strategy and inventing its Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing marketplace, Rajaraman then co-founded Cambrian Ventures before going on to found the web guide Kosmix which he sold to Walmart for an undisclosed sum last April.
 
AT&T Officially Makes Unlimited Data Plans Not So Unlimited With New Throttling Rules Top
att-failWelcome to the brave new world, everyone. AT&T announced today new guidelines in regards to older so-called unlimited data plans. Subscribers will still be able to keep these plans but they're essentially limited to AT&T's new 3GB/5GB data plans. Let's be clear: AT&T's unlimited plans are now officially limited.
 
Square Is Headed To New York City Taxi Cabs; Will Be An iPhone And iPad Experience Top
New York Taxi | Flickr - Photo Sharing!As we heard last week, mobile payments platform Square pitched the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission to replace the current taxi TVs and payments technology in 50 cabs. The company says today that the pilot has been approved, and Square will be tested in up to 30 cabs in the test. AllThingsD first reported the news. Drivers in the pilot will use a version of Square's existing software modified with new features specifically designed for taxis. An iPhone will be plugged into the meter, from which drivers can select tolls, view current traffic patterns, receive messages, and be able to view their trip history.
 

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