Wednesday, December 12, 2012

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Google's Zeitgeist Reveals Whitney Houston As Tops Search Of 2012; iPad 3, SOPA, Hurricane Sandy & More Among Top Trends Top
Zeitgeist 2012 – GoogleBing and Yahoo may have already released their respective looks back on the top searches of 2012, but let's be honest here - Google's 2012 Zeitgeist is the one we've been waiting for. Now in its twelfth year, this year-end wrap up tells us what the world has been searching for, as seen through the billions of searches performed on Google throughout the year.
 
Location Discovery App Spindle's New Alerts Anticipates Questions Before They're Asked Top
Spindle LogoiOS app Spindle just launched Spindle Alerts, which provides customized and timely alerts about events and special deals at each user's favorite places. Co-founder Pat Kinsel told me Spindle Alerts sets itself apart from services like Foursquare Radar by not only recommending nearby places and events to users, but also using the company's search technology to decide how interesting and useful an update will be to them. Spindle constantly monitors social networking updates from businesses and organizations in Boston, San Francisco and New York City, the three cities currently covered by the app.
 
Pew: Social Networking Most Popular In The UK, And Despite The Smartphone App Boom, Voice Calls Remain King Top
pew global attitudesThe Pew Center has been running a long-term study on U.S. consumer habits on the Internet and  other digital media (you can read about past findings here); today it's releasing a new set of data that looks at the wider global situation, as part of Pew's Global Attitudes Project, specifically covering social media and Internet and mobile usage.
 
Video Discovery Startup Plizy Raises $4M Series A From Atlas Venture To Expand Audience, Build Android, iPhone Apps Top
plizy-85607412Video discovery startup Plizy -- which last month relaunched its iPad app and website with a new look and a mission to become a "media center in the cloud" -- has announced it's raised a $4 million Series A round from Atlas Venture. David Marcus, President of PayPal will join Plizy's board of directors, along with Fred Destin, partner in the technology group at Atlas.
 
RadiumOne Pays Startups To Cookie Their Users For Hashtag Ad Retargeting Top
RadiumOne Hashtag AdsStartups in need of a business model don't have to drop more ads in their apps. Instead they can drop cookies on anyone who posts or views a hashtag, and get a revenue share from RadiumOne who retargets their users with ads around the web. RadiumOne begins dogfooding today by dropping retargeting cookies from its Pinter-esque site Via.me so advertisers can target users interested in #cars or #Nike.
 
Web Music Playlist Maker Musicplayr Launches iOS Application Top
musicplayr-streamFollowing its €500,000 seed round this fall, Berlin-based music startup Musicplayr, which acts something like a playlist of tracks you build from various cloud services, is available as an iOS application. The app brings the key features from the online service to mobile, including the ability to explore profiles and discover new music, stream songs and playlists, create playlists, and more.
 
OpenArch Adds A "Digital Layer" To The Average Room Top
BCC_DIAGRAMA-01Creating a workable Minority Report-like screen isn't very hard but what about an entire room or building that responds to touch, voice, and movement? Now that's hard. That, however, is the goal of OpenArch, a project by designer Ion Cuervas-Mons that uses projectors, motion sensors, and light to create interactive spaces.
 
Apple Reportedly Testing TV Set Designs, Which Should Surprise Exactly No One Top
AppleTVThe WSJ reports this morning that Apple is testing out Apple TV set (as opposed to set-top box) designs, though that testing remains "early stage." Apple is specifically working on high-res TVs according to the reports, trialling a few different designs, working with a variety of suppliers including Hon Hai (Foxconn) and Sharp on the new TV designs. But a TV being tested by Apple shouldn't shock anyone.
 
Facebook Remembers 2012 By Giving Users Their Own Year In Review On Timelines Top
Screen Shot 2012-12-12 at 8.08.59 AMToday Facebook posted its Year In Review for 2012, chronicling the most important and popular events, songs, movies, figures, technology, and locations of the past year. Most of what you see there is what you'd expect: The Hunger Games, Barack Obama, and the term YOLO were all crucially important to humanity's development over the past twelve months. But Facebook is also giving the gift of data analysis to its billion+ users, with a personalized Year In Review on everyone's individual timeline. Just like Twitter did for its Year In Review.
 
Forget That Lame Teaser: RIM's L-Series BlackBerry 10 Phone Gets Captured On Video (Again) Top
l-series1RIM posted a mostly toothless smartphone teaser to its BlackBerry 10 landing page earlier this week, but really, what BlackBerry fan could be appeased by that? Thankfully, the folks at Tinhte.vn (the Vietnamese gadget site that came to prominence when it posted early video and benchmarks of the 3rd gen iPad) got their hands on the all-touch L-Series BB10 smartphone and gave it the full photo and video treatment.
 
Olive Goes The Crowdfunding Route With Its Open Platform, All-In-One Home Music Player Top
Olive_ONE_Gangnam_StyleOlive, a well established San Francisco-based audio company that makes high-end digital home audio systems, today took the somewhat unusual route of launching its latest product on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. The new Olive ONE, as it's called, is a departure for the company in more ways than that however: it's also a much more affordable option with a pre-order entry-level price of $399, and it features open architecture Olive hopes will become a vibrant development platform.
 
Mobile Gaming Network Applifier Raises $4M Led By Finland's Lifeline Ventures Top
Screen Shot 2012-12-11 at 9.39.23 PMApplifier, which just launched a new platform for gamers to share replays of their best gaming moments, raised a Series B round of funding led by Finland’s Lifeline Ventures. The $4 million round also included existing investors like MHS Capital and PROFounders along with one more new one in Webb Investment Network. Angel investors like Zynga India general manager Steven Lurie, Anthony Soohoo, Philip Reisberger, David Wright and Tekes, which is the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, also participated. Applifier, which started out on the Facebook platform, pivoted largely to mobile platforms over the last year. The company recently launched a new product called Everyplay, which is a way for gamers to share and replay their greatest moments. Everyplay lets gamers share their favorite titles by recording and replaying sessions of games — like a time they might have gotten a high score. “This is not something we’re cramming down the throats of users,” said Jussi Laakkonen, the company’s CEO. “They’re playing games they like and they want to show off and brag. In Supercell’s Clash of Clans, I want to show off my raids.” Here’s an example replay: Laakkonen adds that watching replays of friends in mobile games is a much more effective form of video advertising on smartphones. He says this type of advertising monetizes three to five times better than standard video ads, which he estimates would result in a $15 to 20 eCPM for publishers. He adds that on the advertiser side, one might see a cost-per-install of around $2 to $2.50. The company hasn’t disclosed the size of its platform yet, but says that the product has attracted more than 400 developer sign-ups and will come out with its first titles this holiday season. Applifier faces off against a number of deep-pocketed competitors that are trying to create a platform of games that generates real network effects in lowering the cost of acquiring and retaining users. GREE and DeNA both are multibillion dollar Japanese mobile gaming companies that have collectively thrown about $1 billion at this problem in acquisitions and hiring. Facebook is also emerging as another force in user acquisition for apps with new ads in the mobile news feed while there are older stalwarts like Tapjoy and Flurry. The company says that its old Facebook products are still growing nicely, with a video advertising network that includes King.com, Zynga and SongPop
 
CloudVelocity Launches With $5M From Mayfield To Bring The Hybrid Cloud To The Enterprise Top
CloudVelocity Release - leenakrao@gmail.com - GmailCloudVelocity, a new startup emerging from stealth that develops hybrid cloud automation platform, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Mayfield Fund.
 
City's Hottest Startups To Compete At The TechCrunch Barcelona Meetup Top
lloguerespais_ptbn_tcm85-90130Tomorrow we'll throw a TechCrunch Mini Meetup in Barcelona, one of the most internationally-minded cities in Europe. Below you'll find out schedule, agenda and here you can grab a free ticket to the party] as the main free event is now full. It's because of its diversity that the city has managed to attract a burgeoning number of startup entrepreneurs wooed by the ability of the city to attract talent, in part because of the climate and lifestyle. When you can live just about anywhere and create an Internet company, you may as well do it in a fun place to live. It's a trend we've seen even San Francisco succumb to, as startups move back form the rather bland campuses of the Valley to the vibrancy of the SF's city living. And Europe's flexible corporate laws now allow startups to be based almost anywhere.
 
British Government Boards The P2P Lending Train: Plans To Loan £30M Through Funding Circle, Zopa Top
displaymedia.ashxDespite bailing them out (and practically owning some of them), the UK government seems unable to force high street banks to begin lending to small businesses again and this is causing a big problem for the economy -- the wheels of capitalism won't grease themselves. The latest solution coming out of the Department for Business Innovation & Skills is to board the P2P lending train. The UK government has pledged £110 million of tax payer's money to lend to SMEs through 'alternative finance' schemes and today we've learned that two P2P lending sites, Funding Circle and Zopa, stand to benefit, with each receiving £20m and £10m respectively.
 
Mobile-Controlled Camera Stand Swivl Returns, With Two New Products On Kickstarter Top
swivl testAround this time last year, the Swivl iPhone dock launched, allowing users to record videos of themselves with a motion-tracking camera stand. The device, which was created by a startup called Satarii and originally backed through a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, is now getting an upgrade. There are now two new versions of the Swivl available for users to check out.
 
Movie Purchasing And Renting Come To 42 New Regional iTunes Stores As Apple Presses Its Media Advantage Top
whatis_play_heroApple has opened up movie purchase and rental options in a number of stores today, including a large number of countries in the EMEA region, as well as in Asia and Latin America. The new movie availability covers 42 new localized stores in total, smaller than the 56 markets where it officially opened new stores on Dec. 4, but nonetheless an impressive push to bring its media marketplace to new regions, which is a key element of its continued success in mobile.
 
Yahoo! Makes Its Second Major Upgrade In Two Days: Flickr For iOS Overhauled, Major Update For Web Top
8255940378_ab063a0162_zAs soon as Marissa Mayer was named Yahoo’s CEO, people were extremely loud about “saving” Flickr. What’s left of the passionate photo community have been waiting for innovation, something that they can get behind and feel good about when they’re spending their time using the site. Today, the company has released a completely overhauled version of Flickr for iOS, its first update since Dec 21, 2011. You read that right, the app hasn’t had an update since last December. For some of us, we’ve moved on to other photo hosting and sharing services, and companies like Facebook and Google have taken a major bite out of Flickr’s powerful photographic stronghold. I’ve personally let my Flickr Pro account lapse, because there just wasn’t enough value in continuing to go back to it. That being said, Flickr still has an incredible number of photos on its service – Yahoo announced today that over 8 billion photos have been uploaded to date. The site itself felt outdated, the features just weren’t up to par with other services, and there was a bit of uneasiness on what the direction of Flickr was. The company hopes that this will change at least some of those fears. It makes sense, since the iPhone has been the most popular “camera” on Flickr for the past seven years. Here’s a look at the new desktop experience, with simplified navigation: Twitter Cards support? Have no fear. Nothing will be cut off, cropped or flat out not displayed. Flickr VP, Brett Wayn says: Our view on that is simple, the creator who is creating content has clear sharing intent, that’s their decision. We want to make the photo look as good as it can to take advantage of all platforms. Flickr, the way it should be on mobile The one thing that’s quite obvious with Flickr’s iOS overhaul, as well as the web updates that were pushed today, the company is going for consistency, everywhere. When users are on a mobile device, they should have a comfortable and familiar experience similar to what they’ve experienced on the web, and vice versa. To date, Flickr has simply not cashed in on that promise, but today’s update certainly pushes Yahoo in that direction. It was quite clear with Mail’s upgrade yesterday that this is an important mission for Yahoo! Have a look at the before and after of Flickr for iOS (last
 
Expect Labs Taps Nuance's Voice Recognition Tech In A Bid For Better Conversation Analysis Top
logo-expectlabs-stackedSan Francisco-based Expect Labs has been keeping awfully quiet since it announced that it raised $2.4 million in funding from Google Ventures and Greylock Partners back in October, but that silent streak ends today. The team has just shed a little more light on how its vaunted Anticipatory Computing Engine will work -- Expect Labs has tapped Nuance and its impressive voice recognition technology to help them in their mission to analyze your conversations and surface relevant information in real-time.
 
Koozoo Raises $2.5M Seed Round Led By NEA And Tugboat To Cover The World With 24-Hour Mobile Video Top
koozooSan Francisco-based Koozoo today announced a seed funding round of $2.5 million, led by New Enterprise Associates and Tugboat Ventures. The round also includes Salesforce co-founder Dave Moellenhoff and TMG Partners CEO Michael Covarrubias, and will be used to help Koozoo hire engineers to build out its vision of a world where crowdsourced, 24-hour mobile video provides a window on the world to anyone who wants to watch.
 

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