11/13 TechCrunch

 

Infinity Ventures Summit In Miyazaki, Japan: 12 Demos From Japanese Startups November 13, 2009 at 12:47 am I am currently in Miyazaki/Japan, attending the Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS), one of Asia's most prestigious web industry events. Organizing VC company Infinity Venture Partners reserved some hours of the program to give a total of twelve 12 Japanese start-ups the chance to present their services onstage to a panel of judges and an international crowd of over 300 people. A speech recognition and transcribing service called Moji Moji TV was selected as "Best Startup" of the IVS Fall 2009 Launch Pad (that ended just now). Here are short profiles of all the services that demo'd at the event. (Please note some of the companies have yet to launch homepages in English, but some do offer globalized services, too.) One Winner and five runners-up: Moji Moji TV by Catalog (winner of the demo pad) Best of show went to Moji Moji TV, which appears to be a very powerful speech recognition and transcribing service for videos launched in private alpha last month. The engine supports Japanese only, but English and Chinese versions are in the works. Moji Moji extracts audio from a video (self-made movies, YouTube clips etc.) and automatically displays the spoken words as text, which then can be edited by the users. The text can be used to tag and sub movies, and it's also possible to search for certain words or expressions within them. There's also an iPhone app called Shabetter that automatically transcribes what you say into the iPhone mic and posts it to Twitter. More information on Moji Moji TV in English can be found here. This video (in English) shows how Moji Moji TV works: V-Sido by Wataru Yoshizaki (runner-up) Most robots used for entertainment, in research and other areas have one common problem: They can only move in a slow, mechanical and chopping motion. Developed by robot fanatic Wataru Yamazaki, V-Sido is a software-based, real-time control system for humanoids that helps make them move smoother. Spysee by Ohma (second runner-up) Spysee is a person search engine whose English version launched at TechCrunch 50 this year (Spysee was a demo pit company). A Chinese version is in the works. The service pulls information and media on individuals from the web and presents them on a person-specific page (example: Barack Obama). Spysee's original Japanese version went live last year and has gone through several iterations since. One example is the way Spysee monetizes its service now: It allows users to donate real money to individuals who need help in funding their personal goals (Cheering Spysee), getting a cut of the donation in return. m-police by milog (third runner-up) m-police is a fully automatized site monitoring system that's able to detect profanity, insults and "legally problematic" sentences on the web and subdivides relevant expressions into 16 different categories. The company says about 5% of all posts in the Japanese blogosphere can be regarded as being relevant for m-police, and 22% of those can be called potentially dangerous. Some Japanese social networks employ up to 300 "surveillance officers" to keep their sites clean. m-police can push down costs from 6 Yen (7 cent) per post monitored by human beings to 3 Yen. AEGISGUARD by KLab (fourth runner-up) AEGISGUARD is anti-virus software that's not only free to download but also completely available in English. The main purpose of the program is to protect your important files and folders from viruses (of which more than 5 million exist today) and malware by granting only white-listed programs access to them. AEGISGUARD developer KLab says this way, unknown or new viruses are effectively fenced out. The solution can be installed with conventional, blacklist-based antivirus software on the same PC. Symphonic Motion by AITIA (fourth runner-up) Symphonic Motion is an augmented reality-based entertainment engine that's not designed for mobile devices for a change but rather for large-sized displays (that can be several meters in diameter). The technology uses "physical" AR, meaning you can get in front of the camera and move CG elements you see on the screen around by moving your arms, for example. Maker AITIA is marketing the solution as interactive, fun digital signage applications to corporations, exhibitions and event organizers (demo movie). The six other demo companies: OpenSocial Host by HeartRails OpenSocial Host is an integrated platform for developing, distributing and managing OpenSocial applications, e.g. for sites like MySpace, hi5 or Japan's biggest social network Mixi.(which opened its site for external developers back in September this year). OpenSocial Host supports mobile apps, offers paid and free options, but it's Japanese only. Location Amplifier by Koozyt The key idea behind Location Amplifier is to "amplify" the real world by pushing "rich", location-based content onto mobile phones, for example location-based games or guides. At IVS, maker Koozyt demonstrated how a person's movements can be tracked even inside buildings (where GPS regularly fails). It's also possible to use Location Amp to walk from exhibit to exhibit in a museum and let your mobile device tell you what you're currently looking at (demo movies). The technology is based on PlaceEngine, a service that relies on Wi-Fi to estimate your location, even when there's no GPS. Zeke CMS Social Game Kit by Ubiquitous Entertainment Ubiquitous Entertainment CEO Ryo Shimizu demo'd Zeke CMS Social Game Kit, a (Japanese-only) platform for developing games to be deployed in social networks like Facebook or Japan's biggest social network Mixi. One of the games that was built using the system is called "Tokyo Treasure", a scavenger hunt, which combines AR elements with the real world, using the iPhone camera ("It's game over when you're tagged!"). Droidget AR by GClue Droidget AR was described as the world's first widget framework for augmented reality services on Android. These widgets can be "picked up" at the physical place where they've been left by other people and used instantly, without the user having to access the web. Example: When you're in a restaurant, switch on the camera on your Android phone, point it at the door and click on the AR tag you see to instantly access the menu (demo movies). Jitsu Kuukan Toushi Keitai by KDDI au one Labs KDDI, Japan's second biggest telecommunications company, presented an augmented reality application that launched in June this year for a limited number of Japanese cell phones. Their Jitsu Kuukan Toushi Keitai app (which roughly translates to: cell phone that allows real space transparency) works just like many of the other mobile AR apps out there. It uses GPS, the phone's camera, 6-axis sensor and screen to locate where you are and point you to where you want to go through tags. But if you point the phone to a wall or a human being, you can also "see through" them, meaning the app will display tags located behind them. This video shows how Toushi Keitai's "see-through" function works: Odette Solution by ORSO Odette Solution lets you create mobile Flash sites (nearly 100% of Japanese mobile phones have Flash Lite installed). The Japanese-only, cloud-based ASP service offers various templates whose elements you can edit in various ways, for example by drag and drop. But you can also create mobile web pages by putting together different elements. Odette Solution will be launched next spring. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Media Files restir.mov (QuickTime Movie, 60.7 MB) Voxeo Raises $9 Million For VoIP And IVR Technologies November 12, 2009 at 11:39 pm IVR and VoIP provider Voxeo has raised $9 million in funding from North Atlantic Capital and the Florida Growth Fund. Voxeo develops technologies in unlocked communications, including VoIP platforms, Interactive Voice Response, text and instant messaging, and unified communications. The startup has made numerous acquisitions over the past year, buying Motorola's Motorola's VoiceXML browser business, IM platform developer IMified, application server Voiceobjects, and VoIP platform Micromethod. Voxeo says that the new funds will be used to make additional acquisitions ad well as further internal development of technologies. It's not surprising that Voxeo has been able to secure a large amount of funding. The startup has seen 1000 percent revenue growth over the past five years. And while Voxeo has steadily growing, the startup has flown under the radar since its founding in 2000. The company serves dozens of big name companies, but doesn't publish a list of customers. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors The GeoAPI Launches For Places, Tweets, Flickr Photos, And More November 12, 2009 at 9:52 pm Location, location, location. With the growing ubiquity of GPS-equipped phones, there is a virtual land rush going on right now to put geolocation capabilities in every mobile app. Today, Mixer Labs, the folks behind TownMe, introduced the GeoAPI, aimed at developers who want to add geolocation features to their apps in a plug-and-play fashion. The GeoAPI is built on top of what was previously called the TownMe GeoAPI, which offered a reverse geo-coder for lat/long coordinates and geo-database of 16 million businesses and points of interest. But now it is its own separate product, and with today's release the GeoAPI now includes geo-coded Tweets and Flickr photos, improved search, a dedicated short URL (http//:geo.am) for location-specific links, an iPhone SDK, and better intersection data. You can find out more details here. So a developer who wants to build their own Foursquare/Gowalla-type mobile app with check-ins and geo-Tweets can build it on top of the GeoAPI instead of assembling all the underlying data from scratch. Developers get up to 20,000 queries per day for free. They can also store their own data in the GeoAPI servers and run geo-queries against them. To get a basic feeling for how this works, check out these simple demos for geo-coded Tweets and Flickr photos in San Francisco. You click on a neighborhood and it shows recent Tweets or photos taken from there. Mixer Labs co-founder Elad Gil was the first product manager for Google Mobile Maps. He will find competition for creating a geolocation infrastructure for developers from SimpleGeo, founded by Matt Galligan (previously of Socialthing) and Joe Stump (ex-lead architect of Digg). Both Gil and Galligan will speak on the Geo Streams panel at next week's Realtime CrunchUp, along with geo experts from Twitter, Foursquare, Google, and Hot Potato. (Tickets are still available). I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot about which geo API is going to be better. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Facebook: Please Back Developers vs iPhone November 12, 2009 at 9:43 pm In July of last year, I wrote about The New Apple Walled Garden. The post was about the irony of developers and advocates who were otherwise open standards and open source champions being absolutely pro-iPhone, a platform that is closed and proprietary in every sense. Since that post, the horror that was foreshadowed by some has been realized – rejected apps, rejected apps, rejected apps. We documented the troubles here at Techcrunch and the overall response was nothing more than long comment threads, complaints, and a few wise people changing their minds. The complaints to date are from some bloggers and a small number of application developers, incidents that Apple are able to write-off as being minor, as they have a dedicated fan base and growing market share to fall back on. That was, until yesterday. Yesterday, a high-profile iPhone developer became fed up with the nature of the platform and decided it was time to call it quits. Joe Hewitt of Facebook not only pronounced that it was time for him to move onto 'other projects', but had the courage to state that his reason was because of the closed nature of the iPhone platform and his frustration with the approval process. Joe is not just the guy who wrote the Facebook application, within 12 hours of the first iPhone launching he released a library for app developers to create iPhone-like applications. This was back in the first generation, when iPhone 'applications' were nothing more than websites. Without any documentation from Apple, and with sheer enthusiasm for the new-born platform, Joe created a library for other developers that would help them build applications that would mimic native iPhone applications built by Apple. As somebody who downloaded the very early releases of Joe's library, I could immediately see that most, if not all, of the first iPhone applications were built on, or at least inspired by, the iUI library he released. The credibility that Joe has and the work that he did not only inspired developers, but it gave them an easy path to developing the first generation of software for the iPhone. With the statements that Joe made yesterday, Apple has not only lost another developer that it can write-off, but has lost somebody who was an early adopter of their platform and an imputes for others. Most iPhone and Apple fans would retort that "Apple make great products, and it is winning in a market where the consumer has free choice". I agree that they make great products, I am writing this post on a Macbook. I was beside myself when I found out about Rhapsody, about OS X, about the new Mach kernel, about FreeBSD code being used for userland (my code is in there, somewhere). I was so enthusiastic about the second coming of Jobs that I had an email exchange with him about incorporating OpenSSL, amongst other things, when the early dev previews were out. I was totally sold, because an operating system was being built and released that combined the best of UNIX with the best of great interfaces. Finally, the open source on desktops conundrum had been solved, I cheered. The biggest non-Microsoft company had adopted what we knew was good, as a way to compete against the standard. It validated my belief in the BSD license, and I was completely beside myself and a fan (although not in the more recent fanboi sense). It was not until the iPhone was released that I felt let down. I felt betrayed. I wanted to hack, and I wanted to do so standing on the shoulder of a giant who was gaining market, a giant who was my old friend. I hold a very strong belief in the open market, a concept which at a theoretical level is difficult to argue against. The iPhone took advantage of a market where the competition was completely clueless. It took an intelligent and smart outsider to recognize that. What has shaken my belief in the open market is that an otherwise good company can enter a market, show them how it is done – but do it in a bad way for the overall ecosystem, and at the same time win the support of people who would otherwise philosophically disagree with them, completely on the basis of that company being not-Microsoft and, well, being sexy. I never believed that Microsoft were evil, first because as a user and developer I had a choice. Second, Microsoft gave me free tools to learn how to code. And last, despite the position Microsoft were in on the desktop they never asked me to send them my code so that they could test it against their black-box of what is 'compliant'. Microsoft never sent me a letter to say that speech bubbles can not be used in my application. Microsoft platforms let me run whatever-the-hell voice provider I wanted. Microsoft, as far as I can recall, also never told me that I could not have a sense of humor (the ironic 1984 reference has already been done, thanks Jon). Developers today also have a choice with mobile applications, and the sooner more developers raise their blinkers and realize that the popularity of the iPhone is built on the applications they are building, the sooner we can either rid of this mess and see Apple change, or a new more open alternative thrive. Hewitt's statements, as a model iPhone developer from a large company, can be the tipping point. The only thing holding this back right now are Facebook themselves, who seem keen on preserving a business relationship and casting Hewitt off as a rogue. Facebook came out today, and in a more official capacity (ie. somebody with 'communications' in their title, as opposed to 'developer'), said that "Facebook's relationship with Apple and our commitment to the iPhone platform remain strong", and that "There's been a fair amount of confusion and speculation about Joe's comments" (chuckle, chuckle) and that "Facebook has a great team of engineers taking over iPhone related development". Joe is probably taking some heat from his employer right now, and he probably knew he would before he made any comment. Facebook could have simply shifted Joe to another project (Android, I hope), and many wouldn't have noticed – but he stood up for what he believes in, and what many have been thinking, and he deserves the full support and credit from everybody who believes in transparency and free opinion, regardless of which side of the iPhone debate your opinions may lay. If it comes down to Facebook vs iPhone, Facebook wins. If Apple hold to their position on being the gatekeeper for everything on their platform, we only win if the developers say no. An iPhone platform with applications only from Apple and no third-parties is no longer a viable platform, and no longer a device that consumers will purchase because they are making decisions based on applications and access, not on the brand or suburb engraved on the back of it (I hope). Facebook should recognize this and back Joe all the way. If they do, it will show that that interest of what they want to do takes precedence over what a handset manufacturer wants to do. Apple can squash small developers, but if a big developer were to set aside short-term business interest for a moment, they will win in the longer term. If only we could all do that and not be blinded, perhaps, well, the free market could work again. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Facebook VP Leaves A Lover Letter For Apple November 12, 2009 at 7:32 pm "For every dev that leaves iPhone in frustration, 1000 new ones join up. iPhone is an unstoppable train regardless of how much we complain." – Joe Hewitt in a tweet yesterday. How right he is. Facebook's VP of Communications Elliot Schrage has just left us a comment on our post from yesterday explaining that while Hewitt may be moving on, Facebook "has a great team of engineers taking over iPhone related development." May an entire team blossom, apparently. Schrage left the comment because there has been much brouhaha over developer Joe Hewitt's decision to stop working on the Facebook iPhone app because he's fed up with Apple's App Store policies. Schrage obviously wants to make it clear that Hewitt's stance does not in any way signify how Facebook as a company feels towards Apple. We don't really think our story yesterday implied that, but okay, noted. Here's the full comment that Schrage left on the post from yesterday: This is Elliot Schrage, VP of Communications at Facebook. There's been a fair amount of confusion and speculation about Joe's comments and whether they reflect the official position of Facebook. They don't. Facebook's relationship with Apple and our commitment to the iPhone platform remain strong. IIn fact, though Joe himself will be moving to new projects, Facebook has a great team of engineers taking over iPhone related development. More generally, our work bringing Facebook Connect to the iPhone and with iTunes, iPhoto and other great products over the past year should illustrate our commitment to expanding our relationship with Apple and finding new ways to offer new services and features to the people who use both our products. A beautifully crafted (minus the typo, of course) piece of PR work there. Are you reading this, Apple? Facebook is asking nicely not to be put in the penalty box. Seriously though, while Facebook may not be on the same page as Hewitt with regard to the App Store policies, we are. As much as I think Apple generally makes great products, the App Store continues to be rife with hypocrisy and heartache. And it's only going to get worse as it continues to grow. It's good to see a developer of Hewitt's caliber take the stance. [photo: flickr/appsara] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. The ScamVille Lawsuit: Facebook, MySpace, Zynga And More Face Possible Class Action Suit November 12, 2009 at 6:33 pm This was inevitable, particularly after this video surfaced. Sacramento based law firm Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP is investigating complaints about unauthorized charges imposed social network users who were mislead into accepting offers of dubious quality. Among those being investigated: Facebook, MySpace, Zynga, RockYou, Offerpal Media, SuperRewards and many others. It's ScamVille, the lawsuit. And we've spoken to one other law firm considering a class action claim against these companies. Will users be vindicated and get their money back? Maybe part of it. A recent class action settlement against WebLoyalty for post transaction marketing scams led to a $10 million settlement, just a tiny fraction of the total revenue pulled in by these offers. The law firms are the ones who get a payday. Gawker, which broke the story, makes a good point though. That video of Pincus looks bad enough on a blog. Imagine what a jury will think of it. And services like Offerpal have now admitted that what they did was questionable. This will likely settle quickly. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Should Nintendo Fear The Apple Juggernaut? November 12, 2009 at 6:30 pm These days, when people aren't talking about the Apple Tablet, they're talking about how Apple's next target is the Big Three gaming companies. The iPhone will topple them! iPhone is a revolutionary gaming device! Well, certainly a little optimism is warranted; the iPhone has inarguably changed the landscape of mobile phones, personal media players, and to a lesser extent personal computers. Why shouldn't Apple extend its holy sovereignty to gaming? It already has, in fact. But Apple has come kicking and screaming the whole way. The iPhone, you understand, was not meant to be a gaming device, and in Cupertino, Apple's intentions are paramount. Apple could never accidentally create a platform for gaming; if it wasn't meant for gaming (or enterprise, or medical use, or reading e-books, etc.) from the beginning, Apple doesn't want it happening at all. Because if Apple didn't intend it, it's outside of the bounds they set into the platform (regardless of how well it works, much like tethering) — it breaks the mold and, ironically, that's the last thing Apple wants. And there are plenty other reasons not to expect Apple to jump into the gaming arena any time soon. Pingdom Says People Are Tweeting 27 Million Times A Day November 12, 2009 at 6:29 pm Twitter may be having trouble finding new users in the U.S., but its existing users in the U.S. seem to be putting out a majority of the Tweets, which are now averaging 27.3 million a day. According to data provided to us by Pingdom, the pattern of Tweets follows waking hours in the U.S. (see chart), even though comScore data suggests more than half of Twitter's users are from outside the U.S. While this data is only a snapshot of the Twitter activity in the three weeks between October 21 and November 11, it does show that the number of messages sent out over the service is approaching a massive scale.  Pingdom estimates that the average number of Tweets per hour is 1.1 million, with fluctuations between 567,000 and 1.8 million Tweets per hour over the period Pingdom sampled Twitter's public timeline. At the current rate, people are sending out 10 billion Tweets a year.  It was only last month that the 5 billionth Tweet was sent out. To put that into perspective, Yahoo recently reported about the same number of status update messages going through Yahoo Mail and Messenger, which has at least five times as many users. Tweets still don't match email however. Yahoo members alone sends out 100 billion emails a month. It still seems far-fetched now, but one day people may send out more Tweets than emails, a topic we will explore next week at our Realtime CrunchUp. How many of you already do? Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Google Announces Acquisition of Gizmo5 November 12, 2009 at 5:54 pm Earlier this week we broke the story about Google's acquisition of Gizmo5. Today Google announced the deal on the Google Voice blog: Today we're pleased to announce we've acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. While we don't have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5's engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number. We've acquired a number of small companies over the past five years, and the people and technology that have come to Google from other places have contributed in many ways, large and small, to all kinds of Google products. Since the GrandCentral team joined Google in 2007, they've done incredible things with Google's technology and resources to launch and improve Google Voice. We welcome the Gizmo5 team to Google and look forward to working together to bringing more useful features to Google Voice. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Forbes Media Acquires Digital Photo Magazine FlipGloss November 12, 2009 at 5:48 pm Forbes Media has acquired FlipGloss and its Digital Glossy Insert photo publishing platform for an undisclosed amount. FlipGloss was fully funded by Forbes Media but was previously not considered a subsidiary of the media group. Founded by former Yahoo! digital music executives, FlipGloss has a host of prominent advisors, including Marc Bodnick from Elevation Partners, former Forbes publisher Jim Berrian, and the founders of Launch.com, Dave Goldberg and Bob Roback. FlipGloss, which launched earlier this year, is a digital magazine focused purely on editorial and advertising photo content. The site features "lifestyle" based photography focused on fashion, design and travel and combines search engine capabilities with the experience of flipping through photo content of a magazine. The FlipGloss's patented Digital Glossy Insert slideshow technology lets users 'Flip, Hover, and Discover' editorial content and ads in an interactive image stream.Forbes says that FlipGloss's technology already being implemented and is powering Forbes' new ranking of "The World's Most Powerful People." It makes sense for Forbes to use FlipGloss to scale its multimedia capabilities. We were critical of FlipGloss' ambitions to be a popular online destination in our initial review, but its technology is visually compelling. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Flickr Outsources Printing To Snapfish November 12, 2009 at 4:57 pm Flickr and Snapfish have struck a deal to make HP's photo sharing sites (and Flickr competitor) the go-to printing partner for the 40 million Flickr users in the US and international markets. As Flickr's "preferred printing partner," Snapfish will let Flickr users to transfer, organize, and print photos, scrapbooks, and more. Yahoo says that this is the first time Flickr's international users will have an option to print photos directly from their photostream thanks to Snapfish's presence in 22 countries. And Flick users can also ship photos to anywhere in the world. Flickr's online photo organization features, such as Organizr, Sets, and Photo Page, are integrated with Snapfish as well. Members in the U.S. have the option to pick up their prints locally at any of Snapfish's retail partners' stores, including Walmart, Walgreens, Staples, Duane Reade, and others retail stores. HP acquired Snapfish in 2005 days after Yahoo acquired Flickr. Flickr also recently added people photo tagging and launched an iPhone app. But the popular photo sharing site has come under fire in the past few months for freedom of speech issues and Yahoo's branding of Flickr. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. First Rule Of Facebook Connect: You Do Talk About Fight Club November 12, 2009 at 4:48 pm This is all kinds of awesome. For its upcoming 10th anniversary addition of David Fincher's film Fight Club, Fox has created a website that uses Facebook Connect in one of the best ways I've ever seen. Once the site loads up (it takes a little while since it's Flash-based), you simply hit a button to Connect and you're off. The result is a mash-up of scenes from the film along with random pictures of you on Facebook. It also pulls your name, and other details from your Facebook profile such as your career. For example, at one point, it flashes the following message to me, "you are squandering your potential as a writer." Interesting. I took a video grab below of it in action, but unfortunately, it doesn't capture the sound. You need to watch this for yourself to get the full effect. Do it now. You are not your f*cking khakis. [images: Fox] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. MySpace Hires Some Social Smarts From LinkedIn November 12, 2009 at 4:39 pm MySpace seems to be on a bit of a hiring spree. Over the past few months the social network hired Mark Rosenbaum as Chief Financial Officer, Alex Maghen as CTO (he was formerly CTO of MySpace Music), former AOL and Tsavo exec Mike Macadaan as VP Product, and former Facebook Director Katie Geminder as SVP of User Experience and Design. Now MySpace has recruited a product manager from LinkedIn, Christina Wodtke, to be the general manager of social. Wodtke was previously a Principal Product Manager at LinkedIn and ran the activity stream (which recently got a little Twitter-happy), communication products, and the events application. She also built the search and marketplace design team at Yahoo, and helped to redesign search, shopping and local products. Wodtke will fall under the purview of chief product officer Jason Hirschhorn. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. For Charity: Foursquare Looking For Leaderboard Sponsors November 12, 2009 at 4:24 pm By now, if you've heard about the location-based service Foursquare, you know that a key component of it is the gaming element. One level of this game is that users compete to get mayorships of venues within cities. A second level involves obtaining badges. But a third level is much more straightforward: A leaderboard. Now Foursquare is trying to up the motivation behind that element of the game by bringing in charity. Foursquare is teaming up with a charity in New York City (where they are based), Techies Give Back, to translate checkins into donations. Ideally, this money would come from brands/organizers that would sponsor the Foursquare Leaderboard for a week, co-founder Dennis Crowley tells us. Money earned would be given to CampusInteractive, a nonprofit that works with inner-city youth on both outdoors and tech projects, which Techies Give Back is working with to hold an event on December 13. Here's how this would work: When you checkin on Foursquare, you generate points that go towards your score on the leaderboard. These points differ based on a few factors. Generally, you get more points if you're checking into a place you haven't been to before, or in a long time. You also get more points for adding a venue that isn't yet in Foursquare's system. Based on these points, a sponsor would donate a set amount of money per point. Foursquare is looking for a brand that will donate at least $0.03 to Techies Give Back for each point earned. In NYC, that means the charity would have raised over $4,500 last week. (For those keeping score at home, that means there were about 150,000 points earned from checkins in New York last week.) The sponsorship would allow for a complete re-skinning of the Foursquare leaderboard, Crowley notes. The week they are targeting is December 7 through the 12. Ideally, they'd have a brand step up with a winning proposal by December 1. Those interested should email info [at] techiesgiveback.org. While this will just be an experiment in NYC at first, Crowley hints that this is something the company is thinking about doing with its leaderboard going forward. And this extends upon the idea of using the game element of Foursquare for good. Last month, the service teamed up with BART, the public transportation system in the San Francisco Bay Area, to encourage people to check in more at BART stations to earn rewards such as free rides and a special badge. Of course, none of this has to do with the business model Foursquare is also working on, which involves partnering with local venues to create incentives such as free meals/beer for users who checkin. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Crazy ComScore Charts: LinkedIn Shoots Up Past Twitter November 12, 2009 at 3:59 pm Did LinkedIn more than double its U.S. visitors in October? A casual glance at the latest comScore data makes it look that way, with LinkedIn shooting up to 20 million unique visitors in October, 2009, from 9 million in September, 2009. The new estimate puts LinkedIn ahead of Twitter, which saw a decline of U.S visitors last month to 19.2 million. Of course, LinkedIn didn't really all of a sudden have a growth spurt in October. Rather, comScore was previously under-counting its reach. Now it does a better job of measuring Web usage at work, which apparently is where about half of LinkedIn's users check in. It makes sense, since LinkedIn is a professional network and you are more likely to be looking for contacts at other companies during work hours. While the fish-shaped chart above suggests that LinkedIn is now about as popular in the U.S as Twitter (or at least Twitter.com), the two are complementary. On Tuesday, LinkedIn gave users the ability to link to their Twitter accounts so that their Twitter stream shows up as status updates in LinkedIn as well. Since Tuesday, LinkedIn has witnessed a 25 percent increase in status updates. Long live the stream. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Vitamin D Turns Your Webcam Into A Virtual Doorman November 12, 2009 at 3:36 pm When I bought a webcam for my front door - mine is the Linksys WVC54GCA - I was faced with a predicament. The built-in motion detection software bombarded my email inbox with images of an empty frame. It was set off by the motion of a leaf or a reflection, rendering one of the most important aspects - notification of trespass - ineffective. At an impasse, I decided to build a cyberbiomimetic AI using a cockroach brain and a vat of amino acids. The resulting system, while effective at spotting intruders, eventually threatened to become self-aware and so I had to shut it down. Finally, I tried Vitamin D. Problem, as they say, solved. SPDY Gonzales: Google Continues Its Push To Take The Web To Breakneck Speeds November 12, 2009 at 3:13 pm Google is obsessed with speed. By many accounts its Chrome web browser is already the fastest out there, and it runs laps around the two big boys: Firefox and IE. But that's not good enough for Google. And so now they're also working on their own web content transportation protocol. To be clear, despite some of the wording ins its blog post, SPDY (pronounced "speedy") isn't about fully replacing HTTP, the standard web protocol since 1996, but it is about augmenting it, to make delivery faster. How much faster? After doing some initial internal tests with Chrome, Google claims that the top 25 websites in the world can load up to 55% faster with SPDY. Of course, as Google notes, those tests were done in Google's labs, likely under optimal conditions. SPDY in an average home during daily use may produce different results. But again, this protocol is still very young, so it's entirely possible that things could get even faster. To that end, Google is asking for the development community's help. They've posted some early documentation and code samples, hoping for feedback. In the docs, Google lays out the difference between HTTP and SPDY: SPDY is intended to be as compatible as possible with current web-based applications. This means that, from the perspective of the server business logic or application API, nothing has changed. To achieve this, all of the application request and response header semantics are preserved.  SPDY introduces a "session" which resides between the HTTP application layer and the TCP transport to regulate the flow of data. This "session" is akin to an HTTP request-response pair. I reached out to Google just to confirm that they weren't going to try and do something completely crazy like change the "http://" we all know and love with "spdy://", don't worry, they're not. As stated above, SPDY will create a session of sorts that resides between HTTP and the data transportation. What will be interesting about this protocol is if it's optimized for Chrome over the other web browsers. It would seem Google wouldn't do that, since its ultimate goal is to have people using the web through any means as quickly as they can (so as best to serve their ads more often). But when you're developing both a protocol and a browser, it seems likely that Google will have an advantage to offer the best experience. A few startups are also working on ways to deliver web content faster. One, FasterWeb, which we covered in July, is hoping to improve web surfing speeds tenfold next year. Their approach is different, optimizing content on the provider or ISP end. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Trouble At Twitter: U.S. Visitors Down 8 Percent In October November 12, 2009 at 3:02 pm Ever since last summer, Twitter's growth in the U.S. has been stalling. But in October, the number of people who visited Twitter.com from the U.S. actually declined for the first time by 8 percent month-over-month. Estimates released today by comScore put Twitter's domestic unique visitors at 19.2 million, down from 20.9 million in September. On an annual basis, Twitter is still going gangbusters with 1,271 percent growth from 1.4 million visitors in October, 2008. And on a global basis, it still seems to be chugging away with 58.4 million visitors in September. But a hypergrowth company like Twitter cannot afford to slow down in its home market. CEO Evan Williams recently acknowledged the slowdown in the U.S., and hopes that a slew of new features will help revive growth to the site. Many of these features are already rolling out, including the new Retweet button, Lists, and Geolocation features. Twitter is obviously committed to making its service better on its own Website (these numbers do not measure usage on mobile or desktop clients, which is easily half of all Twitter usage). But while it fiddles, rival Facebook keeps moving further and further ahead. Will the new features be enough to bring back growth in the U.S.? If they don't, Twitter's troubles will really begin. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Twitter, Facebook Come To Xbox 360 On Nov. 17 November 12, 2009 at 2:49 pm As of next Tuesday, November 17, you'll be able to access Twitter and Facebook on your Xbox 360. The software update is free, like previous updates, and also includes Last.fm and Zune video compatibility. "What are you doing?" "Losing to 12-year-olds in Modern Warfare 2 over and over again! Not fun." The idea, I guess, is that you'll be able let your friends know just how much fun you're having while playing the latest game, or streaming the latest Netflix release, without having to go through the trouble of whipping out your phone or walking over to your computer. I see it as a convenience and nothing more. It may also mean that there's nothing you can to do stop Twitter's worldwide dominance. Video: Hands-on With the Chumby One November 12, 2009 at 2:41 pm Ladies and germs: the Chumby One. Hot on the heels of its soft, leathery older brother, the Chumby One goes for a more non-nonsense aesthetic with hard edges and a more clock-radio feel. As you recall, the device costs $99.95 and allows you to play back little widgets on a tiny touchscreen. It is at once banal in its simplicity and amazingly unfettered in the amount of content you can stream to the device. Our Chumby One came pre-installed with a few widgets including our own news feed and Twitter, which lets you view your Tweets whenever the widget rolls around. I'm going to place this thing on my desk and treat it like a third screen in order to really test the value of this wee fellow. More soon. YouTube Succumbs To Branding As Warner Music Begins Its Return November 12, 2009 at 2:39 pm Last January Warner Music Group forced YouTube to remove all of its music from the site, citing disputes over royalty payments. This led to an outcry from users, who created protest videos once YouTube started muting or pulling down any user-generated content that contained WMG songs as background music. Today, those songs are starting to make their way back to the world's largest video portal: music videos for Madonna, Green Day, and Seal, among others, are now live on YouTube for the first time in nearly a year. That's great news. But the new videos will look a bit odd to anyone who has used YouTube before — they're all decked out with extensive branding, including colorful backgrounds and large links to the artist's products. Warner alone has the ability to do this, because of a deal it negotiated that gives it far more control over its pages than other content partners have. Warner is allowed to control its own branding, and can sell its own ads against both its own music videos and the user generated content that features its songs, with the majority of the revenue from these ads going to WMG (YouTube will take a cut as well). At this point the branding isn't awful, but it's a concession YouTube surely wasn't eager to make. After all, now that Warner has the ability to brand their clips however they want, other content owners will want to do it themselves. If YouTube agrees to that, we'll lose the relatively uniform layout on the site in favor of something that's more reminiscent of (the old) MySpace. And there's always the risk that Warner won't be happy with its initial results and may try some more aggressive branding, which could get even more annoying. At this point it looks like only a fraction on Warner's content has been reintroduced to the site, though we can likely expect more of it to come online in the next few weeks. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors No Need To Wrap Your Blog Post In A Tweet, Just Sync It With MySpace November 12, 2009 at 2:14 pm Plenty of people use Twitter to syndicate out their content — like TechCrunch, for example. And often those tweets also are syndicated out to other places — like MySpace, for example. But now you can remove one step in that process if you choose with MyFeedSync for MySpace. This tool, developed by Egghead Ventures, with the help of developer Sean Percival, who has been advising MySpace recently, uses MySpace ID to sync any RSS feed with your MySpace status. This is similar to the tool that MySpace's recently announced that syncs your Twitter with your status. But instead of showing a tweet with a Twitter logo, it shows a blog post title with a link, and a RSS logo. This should make it clear to people looking at your profile that you're highlighting a post of yours rather than just linking to some piece of content you think is cool. The blog URLs are shortened with MySpace's lnk.ms shortener. There are also options for this tool such as setting the time interval that dictates how often it will pull in new content. And you can set an into text to put in such as "New blog post:" More here on Percival's blog. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. That $1.25 Billion Settlement With AMD? It's About 12 Days Of Revenue For Intel. November 12, 2009 at 12:49 pm Today Intel agreed to pay rival chipmaker AMD $1.25 billion to settle a raft of ongoing litigation going back decades. AMD accused Intel of anti-competitive practices, which sparked an antitrust investigation. By settling now with AMD, Intel avoids paying out billions more down the line and being branded a monopolist by the government for abusing its 80 percent PC-chip market share. The size of the settlement is as close to an admission of guilt we'll ever hear from Intel. It still maintains its innocence, as any prudent corporation would, but you don't pay out $1.25 billion just to avoid the hassle of a trial. And while $1.25 billion is an enormous sum which will help shore up AMD's balance sheet, it amounts to only 10 percent of Intel's $12.9 billion in cash and short term investments. Just to put the size of the settlement in context, last year Intel's revenues were $38 billion. Last quarter alone, it was making roughly $104 million a day. At that rate, Intel brings in $1.25 billion every 12 days. It can absorb the settlement pretty easily. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Google Wave Declutters The Inbox With Following Feature November 12, 2009 at 12:40 pm This morning, Google is making a slight update to Wave to help users unclog their inbox from public waves. Previously, you could see public waves in your inbox, which was fairly annoying. Now for a wave to appear in your inbox, you need to "follow" the wave. When someone adds you directly to a wave, or if you contribute to a wave, you will automatically be following that wave. But when you see a public wave that you would like to get updates on and monitor the conversation, you can chose to follow it by hitting the follow button in the wave panel toolbar. You can also archive waves, which will removes waves from your inbox. When there is an update to an archived wave, it will appear in your inbox again. And you can switch between following and unfollowing a wave as much and as often as you like. Google says the "unfollow" feature replaces the mute command. You can still find waves that you are not following by searching for them or if you have organized them into saved searches or folders. The feature certainly gives your more control over your inbox, which is always a good thing. Google needs to continue adding more intuitive features to help users better understand the innovative, but confusing communications product. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Video: Fox News Takes On Violent Video Games. Again. November 12, 2009 at 12:12 pm Fox News held a fair and balanced debate over Modern Warfare 2, the popular new FPS that lets you play a CIA operative tasked with helping Russian agents clear terrorists out of an airport. In the game, it turns out that the Russian had turned on you and forced you to kill innocents in the airport. It's a depiction of USA-funded terrorism. It is not a murder simulator. The debate here, if it can be called that, seems to rotate around the correlation between video game violence and real violence. The old man in this debate mentioned an American Association of Pediatrics statement. Video and commentary after the jump. Cleaning House Before Its IPO Will Cost AOL $200 Million And Up To 1,000 Jobs November 12, 2009 at 10:49 am As AOL prepares to spin off from Time Warner in an IPO, it wants to gussy itself up so that it looks as appealing as possible tp ublic investors. Today, AOL disclosed that it plans yet another restructuring which could cost as much as $200 million. The biggest cost savings from any restructuring is usually through layoffs, and the latest round has already started at AOL, with 100 let go this week and as many as 1,000 of its 6,000 jobs at risk of being eliminated. Despite new leadership under CEO Tim Armstrong, AOL has yet to turn around financially.  Last quarter, revenues sank 23 percent to $777 million.  The biggest drop came from subscription revenues to its legacy Internet access business, down 29 percent, but advertising revenues also took a hit, down 18 percent.  AOL depends on display advertising, which has not yet rebounded like search advertising appears to be doing. By cleaning up house and removing as many costs as possible before the IPO, Armstrong is trying to make AOL as lean as possible. But eliminating salaries and benefits can only go so far. He has to show that his new content strategy can create actual growth as well. CrunchBase Information AOL Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Reddit Opens Its Homepage To Anyone Willing To Pay (Invites) November 12, 2009 at 10:45 am In a world where Facebook and Twitter dominate the headlines, it's easy to forget that other social properties, like Reddit still send a ton of traffic to sites. But they absolutely do, and now you can buy your way into that. Starting today, Reddit is testing out a new closed beta experiment to allow anyone to purchase a sponsored link on Reddit's homepage. Yes, that means you, not just some random advertiser. And not just the homepage, it's the top overall link. Now, obviously, this link will be clearly labeled as "sponsored," but that shouldn't make it that much less of an enticing opportunity for some individuals who want to drive traffic to their site. Reddit says it sees anywhere from a 2% to a 10% click-through-rate on the ads that run in this area. At the very least, this should mean thousands of hits coming to your site that wouldn't otherwise get. So what's the catch? The only catch is money. As long as you're willing to pay the minimum of $20 a day, Reddit will enter you into a pool with everyone else willing to pay to determine how much face time you'll get on the homepage. For example, if the total bids for the day equal $200, and you bid the minimum $20, you'll get 10% of the day in this ad slot. It seems very likely that the daily bids are going to be quite a bit more than that, so $20 probably isn't going to buy you much, but still, it will get you something. With this beta, there won't be the ability to target specific Reddits (the Politics Reddit, for example), but the plan is to eventually offer that option to better match individual advertisers with the audience they are trying to reach. Adding your own self-serve ad is as easy as can be. Once you're accepted into the beta, you simply fill out a title for you link, enter the URL, put in the duration that you wish to run your campaign, optionally disable comments, put in your bid amount, and then upload an image (if you choose). You then pay by entering your credit card information into a form. What's great is that just like regular Reddit items, users will be able to vote up or down on your ad, which means that if your content actually is good, you can even appear on the homepage for longer than you've paid for. The company notes that users have tried to game the system for years attempting to get traffic, so this is a logical extension to allow them to pay to get it. It officially unveiled sponsored links for advertisers (big name ones) in January. Reddit's main competitor, Digg, also has a advertising voting system, but so far, it's only open to Digg's advertising partners, not anyone willing to pay. Assuming they put guidelines in place (which Reddit has), it's not hard to see this type of model eventually making its way to Digg as well. Reddit's founders, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, recently left the company three years to the day after Condé Nast purchased them. But they're still clearly involved, as we spoke with Ohanian about this new launch, and he seems pretty excited about it. As a part of the launch, Reddit has given us some invites to give to TechCrunch readers to check out the self-serve advertising system. The first 50 people to email MArrington [at] reddit.com will receive the invites. CrunchBase Information Reddit Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Incsub Launches WP Plugins; App Store For WordPress Plugins November 12, 2009 at 10:00 am Wordpress is one of the web's most popular blogging platforms, with over 8.5 million downloads and 7,200 plugins. But with all those plugins, finding the high quality ones can be a challenge. That's where WP Plugins comes in. Launching today, WP Plugins hopes to be the App Store for WordPress plugins. WordPress plugin developers can upload their premium plugins to WP Plugins and sell them to users. Developers have the choice to sell their plugins at whatever price they choose, and can two choose from two pricing models: they can offer their plugin as-is (buyers will have a 7 day window to download it) or they can offer it as a subscription, which includes upgrades and personal support from the plugin's developer for as long as you continue the subscription. Of course, the subscription will cost more in most cases. WP Plugins then takes 10% of each plugin sale. To participate, plugin developers have sign up for a developer account, and upload their plugin. Incsub's team of WordPress experts will then look over plugin, and once it's approved, it'll get put on the store and up for sale. Incsub will monitor plugins and make sure there is no malicious content as well. WP Plugins has more information here. Incsub has quite the experience with WordPress; they've run sites including Edublogs, WordPress Multi-User Dev and blog network hosts Blogs.mu. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. SpotiChart Picks Up Spotify Tweets, Charts Music Trends On The Fly November 12, 2009 at 9:29 am Plenty of Spotify users share what they're listening to with the world using Twitter, thanks to a one-click sharing option that's baked into the much-hyped online music application. This in turn apparently inspires creative coders to use the data for building cool stuff on top of all that rich, public information. SpotiChart, for example, is an amazing pet project by London-based developer Benoit Xhenseval that aggregates Spotify tweets from public Twitter accounts and parses the data in order to build dynamic global music charts based on streams of tracks, albums, playlists, artists and more. SpotiChart regularly tracks the public Twitter timeline for tweets that contain the word spotify (which can be in a URL, even when it is shortened by one of the many tools for that) and upon reception contacts the Spotify service to get the details of items. SpotiChart then weeds out duplicate tweets, compiles the rest and turns the data into custom charts. Every now and then (see schedule), SpotiChart will create updated charts and alert followers of the @SpotiChart account, which means in between 7 and 12 tweets per day will be sent to these users. Custom charts for tracks, albums and artists also have their own RSS feed, which updates once every day. Great stuff, Xhenseval. But expect some backlash over that one unsolicited tweet your service sends out to random Spotify users to raise awareness for SpotiChart. (Via Kieran McGrady) Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Full Streams Ahead: Clicker's TV Search Engine Is Now Open To The Public November 12, 2009 at 9:00 am Clicker, the startup that looks to be a comprehensive video search engine for television content on the web, has launched to the public. The site made its public debut at TechCrunch50, where it generated quite a bit of positive buzz, and has gradually ramped up its private beta over the last couple months. I spoke with Clicker CEO Jim Lanzone (formerly CEO of Ask.com), who says that the site's beta was actually shorter than expected, in part because intital feedback has been quite positive. Since appearing at TechCrunch50, Clicker has added 33% more content to its database, growing from an index of 300,000 up to 400,000 full length episodes. These 400,000 episodes come from over 7,000 different shows across 1,200 content sources around the web. Lanzone says some of the biggest changes since we last saw Clicker have been to its Playlist function, which new includes more DVR-esque features like new episode alerts and season passes. Lanzone also says that the site has continued to build out its search engine, which now allows you to constrain your search to episode descriptions of a specific show — for example, you could do a search for "Michael Arrington" within the Charlie Rose show to see all of the times Michael has been interviewed on that show. Clicker has also launched a 'related search' feature that suggests shows you may like based on what you're currently viewing (this feature was only a placeholder during the TC50 demo because it relies in part on user data to help determine what's related). And there's integration with Facebook Connect, which you can use to sign in and to share content to your News Feed. Another big change is the addition of premium content to Clicker's search engine: the site now includes shows from both Amazon Video on Demand and Netflix's 'Watch Instantly' content (you'll obviously have to pay for these to watch them). Clicker doesn't actually host any of this content — instead, it provides deep links that point you directly to whichever episode you want to watch. All of this is provided free, but the site plans to roll out premium features (following the 'imdb model) in the future. Stay tuned. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Myxer Delivers 10 Million Ringtones To iPhone Users November 12, 2009 at 9:00 am Mobile content delivery startup Myxer has officially delivered over 10 million free ringtones to iPhone users.Myxer allows users to download ringtone in two ways. First, Myxer's free ringtone podcasts allows any iTunes user to pull ringtones directly from the channel. And the startup has a standalone site that gives users the ability to download from a catalog of more than two million ringtones and sync them to the device from their PC. The easier of the two options is surprisingly subscribing to the podcast. Being subscribed means that iTunes will check for new files as they become available, allowing users to get Myxer ringtones directly from iTunes and on their mobile phone every time they sync. Two new ringtones are added each week. In addition to ringtones, Myxer offers over 2 million free ad-supported ringtones, wallpapers and videos and currently counts more than 27 million users. Users can also make their own ringtones, videos and wallpaper from music and files a customer already owns. Competitors include mSpot, Playphone and SendMe. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Listiti Offers More Ways To Promote And Track Twitter Lists November 12, 2009 at 7:25 am Whether you're a fan of Twitter's new list feature or not, it has proven to be a great way to discover people of interest one can mass-follow. But keeping track of Twitter lists can prove cumbersome and overwhelming. Recently, Listiti launched, combining the concept of Google Alerts with Twitter Lists by sending out e-mail notifications based on the appearance of keywords in tweets from lists you keep track of. This is particularly useful for marketers who'd like to keep track of conversations about a company, product or brand, but only from a specific subset of Twitter users. Listiti just pushed a new version of the service live, and has added a useful new feature that makes it even more worth checking out: badges. Social Gaming Still In Play – Wooga Raises An Additional €5 Million November 12, 2009 at 6:57 am [Germany] It seems that social gaming is where the action is right now, and we're not just hearing that from the kids. Following Electronic Arts' $300 million acquisition of Playfish, and the just-reported $43 million further investment that Playdom has raised, we've caught wind that Berlin-based wooga has secured €5 million ($7.5m) of additional funding. The round is being led by Balderton Capital, although earlier investor Holtzbrinck Ventures has also participated. Sales Guy v. Web Dude, Parts 2-4. Oh, Yeah. November 12, 2009 at 5:53 am Most of you have probably seen Sales Guy v. Web Dude, a hilarious video on the joys of tech support. If you haven't seen it, kiss ten minutes goodbye and start there. It ranks up there with the stuff on Best Page In The Universe in entertainment and laugh value. The creator was quiet for a long time after that video. But in the last few months have been productive for him. And he now has three new videos and posted them on The Website Is Down. All, including the original, are embedded below: Episode 1 – Sales Guy vs. Web Dude The original website is down video web dude tries desperately to get his important work done while assulted on all sides by rampant incompetence. Will he survive??? Episode 2 – Excel Hell Video #2 from the website is down! Chip takes us on a wild ride into the life of a master salesman. How many sales can he make in a single video? One? Maybe? Episode 3 – Remain Calm Chip Demonstrates his special procedure for a hot-swap hardrive replacement using only his steel-toed boot and his razor thin patience. Watch and Learn! Episode 4 – Sales Demolition Biz Tip of the week: Get your clients in the room and shove your product down their throats in a sales demo! Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Already Profitable Redfin Raises Another $10 Million November 12, 2009 at 5:15 am Seattle based Redfin, an online real estate startup, has raised another $10 million in a venture capital round led by Greylock Partners. Existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Vulcan Capital and The HIllman Company all participated in the round, and Greylock's James Slavet joins the Redfin board of directors. This was a safety round, as Redfin announced profitability over the summer and have now exceeded a $20 million in revenue run rate (it was just $15 million last summer). They've roughly quadrupled in size since 2008, even in a down real estate market. I used Redfin as a buyer over the summer when I was looking for a house. Here's how it works, and why it's so attractive compared to normal real estate broker deals: As a buyer you spend a lot of time on the Redfin site, looking at available houses and a rich set of data on previous sales, comps in the neighborhood, other homes listed in the same price range, etc. (or you can use their iPhone app, which the company says is the highest rated real estate app). If you want to view a home you schedule online. They set it up for you and meet you at the house. In all, it isn't much different than the standard buying a house procedure. Except at the end they refund 50% of their commission to you. On a $500,000 house, you get a check for $7,500 at closing. Sellers who use Redfin pay a flat a $5,000 – $7,000 fee, depending on services ordered. And if you're also using Redfin to buy a home while you are selling, that fee drops by $1,000. As you can imagine, real estate professionals aren't thrilled. Nor do they love CEO Glenn Kelman, who said In an interview with 60 Minutes: "Real Estate is by far the most screwed up industry in America." But customers clearly love the service, and they have closed more than $2 billion in home sales since launching in February 2006. The total U.S. home real estate market is around $1 trillion, so they have some room to grow. Redfin is currently available in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Washington DC, Baltimore, New York's Long Island and Westchester County as well as most of California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and Sacramento. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Personera Connects With Facebook To Make Custom Print Calendars November 12, 2009 at 2:00 am I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone other than my grandparents who use use print calendars any more. Launching today, Personera, hopes to bring print calendars into the Web Age by combining the old with the new. The company is offering the world's first print calendar that is personalized with the birthdays of your Facebook friends, upcoming events, and photos. Personera's service allows people to use their Facebook accounts to log in through Facebook Connect, and make all of their social network content instantly available for product personalization. Users are able to choose a theme, automatically add their friends birthdays and events each day, and drag and drop their favorite photos into the monthly layouts. A high quality 12-month, 32-page printed calendar then is delivered to their mailbox. The service itself costs $24.95, but that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Personera has received $125K in funding from Vinny Lingham, Michael Leeman and Tomas Van den Berckt. CrunchBase Information Personera Facebook Connect Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0