|  Back in June, we wrote about Birdfeed, an iPhone Twitter application that finally brought the speed and simplicity to rival what many consider to be the top client, Tweetie. It's a great app that offers a different look and feel from Tweetie (and especially now Tweetie 2), which some users prefer. And it's about to gain a key feature which could further differentiate it: Geolocation.
Now, to be clear, as we previewed last month, the upcoming version of Tweetie, 2.1, will also support Twitter's new geolocation feature. But the new version of Birdfeed, 1.2, does it in a way that highlights it much more. And in fact, when Twitter geolocation support finally does roll out (it's due very soon, we hear), Birdfeed has a good shot to be the go-to app for it at launch. So what's so good about it? Well, unlike Tweetie 2.1, which forces you to click into a menu system to get at the geolocation feature, Birdfeed puts it front and center at the top of every tweet composition screen. If you opt-in to using the feature (and it's important to note that Twitter geolocation is opt-in), you can choose to either tweet with your location sent out each time, or use it on a tweet-by-tweet basis. If you choose the latter, you'll see a bar along the top that reads, "Add a location to this tweet". Clicking on that with start a "Determining location" function, and in a few seconds, you'll have your location pinned to the top of that tweet under which you'll write the actual tweet. Simple. Currently, there isn't any granular support to pick and choose how much or little detail of your location to show (what city you're in versus what block you're on, for example), but I suspect that may be something coming from Twitter's end once geolocation launches. On tweets sent out with this geolocation data, you'll see a hyperlinked location beneath the timestamp on the tweet's landing page. Oddly, there is no obvious way to tell which tweets are geotagged and which are not from the main stream, currently. If you click on this location on the tweet screen, you'll be taken to that location on a map and show a marker with that Twitter user's name and their tweet on top of a Google Map. Birdfeed 1.2 was submitted to the App Store for approval 2 days ago, developer Buzz Andersen tells us. He remains committed to improving the application going forward, but notes that it has been slow going because he has other projects he's currently working on as well. Still, Birdfeed is just as solid as it was several months ago and now with great geolocation implementation, could well see a spike in usage from the LBS lovers. Watch for it in the App Store sometime in the next couple of weeks.  
 
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| | Move Aside, Vampire Wars. City Of Eternals Is A Real Game.
November 10, 2009 at 10:10 pm | |
| |  We first wrote about Flash MMOG startup Ohai back in January. There wasn't anything to look at, but the company had raised $6 million in funding and had assembled a small but impressive group of gaming technology executives.
Now they're ready to launch their first game, City Of Eternals. The timing is perfect – the vampire themed game will attract the Twilight-crazy crowd of teenage girls and the boys that follow them around. Move aside, Vampire Wars. City of Eternals is a real game. This is a game that's easy to begin playing. You log in via Facebook Connect or Twitter and you're playing. No account creation. No need to even tell you you're male or female – it already knows. And since every player is logging in via Facebook or Twitter, there is also a real human being to look at behind the avatar. You can click on the player icon and see a picture and the first name of the player, and message them if their privacy rules allow it. That will let users build real friendships, says founder and CEO Susan Wu. And those friendships are one thing that Ohai hopes will keep people playing over the long term. They want their users to engage with the game like World Of Warcraft aficionados do – every day for years and years.  So far it's working. 10,000 private beta testers have been playing for two months now, and are averaging ten logins and 65 minutes of playing per day. "People are in love with the game," said Wu.
Game play is a hybrid between familiar client-based MMOGs and more recent social games on facebook like Vampire Wars and FarmVille. Players perform missions and fight to gain experience and other assets, and they can buy virtual goods to make the game more fun. This is a strictly cash economy, says Wu. No ScamVille offers will be put in front of users. Another feature of the game is that it's embeddable anywhere since it's built on Flash. You can play it on the City of Eternals website, or the soon to launch Facebook app page, or we could embed it here on TechCrunch. When you play you'll have the same experience. And you're friends will be right there with you. They even have an iPhone version that they are testing internally, says VP Engineering Don Neufeld. It won't be exactly the same experience as the Flash version, but people will be able to play the game and interact with friends. The game is built on a backend platform that the company will reuse for future titles. They use their own API to move data to the front end user interface, so developers could theoretically build versions of the game for Silverlight, Android, etc. Up next we'll have a video and 500 invitation to give away so you can start playing immediately. In the meantime, here are some screenshots: 
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | PHP Founder Rasmus Lerdorf Leaves Yahoo
November 10, 2009 at 9:50 pm | |
| |  PHP founder Rasmus Lerdorf has left his long-held position at Yahoo, according to his Twitter account. Lerdorf joined Yahoo in 2002 and has worked for the company as an engineer since. Lerdorf is most notable for creating the original PHP engine, and for being a notable open source developer, speaker and author. Lerdorf developed PHP in 1995 after building up a collection of C macros that he was using in web application development. The original meaning of the anagram is 'Personal HomePage', and the language and environment are still the most popular in use on the web today.
PHP was developed further and commercialized by Zend, but Lerdorf has maintained an ongoing involvement with the open source project. Lerdorf has worked at a number of companies since first developing PHP, but has spent a large part of his professional career with Yahoo and he had a strong association with the company. Lerdorf is one of a number of star engineers and developers who have left Yahoo in recent times, and the stable of notable and high-profile engineers at the company has whittled out. Lerdorf has been more recently noted for his blog posts, such as his outline on his philosophy to developing PHP applications: The no-framework PHP framework. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Do You Have What It Takes To Give A Realtime Pitch?
November 10, 2009 at 9:12 pm | |
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As we've been putting together our Realtime CrunchUp for November 20, one thing is becoming abundantly clear: there are dozens of startups out there all preparing to launch amazing new realtime products. We'd like to give them all a spot on stage to give the audience a demo, but we can't because we also have to make room for a full agenda interviews, panels, and roundtables. We've lined up great speakers from Twitter, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Foursquare, Seesmic, Brizzly, Threadsy, Accel, Charles River Ventures, and more. We've even got the Hollywood agent behind Britney Spears' digital strategy (see below). So here's what we are going to do. At the event, we will pick two entrepreneurs from the audience to give on-the-spot demos. If you think you've got what it takes to deliver a Realtime Pitch at the CrunchUp, when you buy your ticket opt in to the Realtime Pitch. Be prepared because you might be called onstage. That's real audience participation. We wouldn't try this sort of thing with just any crowd, but judging from the caliber of the attendees last time, any one of them could have been on stage. Well, nearly any one of them (which is why we've set up the opt-in). If you've already bought a ticket and want to opt in, log into Eventbrite and change your preferences or email us and we'll do it for you. It's always a good idea to keep everyone on their toes at these events. There will be plenty to discuss as we dig deep into specific real-time catalysts, such as mobility, geolocation, communications collaboration, stream filtering, media streams, and investment strategies. Please join us and members of our Realtime Board Friday, November 20, 2009
Main Agenda: 9 am – 5:45 pm
After Party with StartUp Demo Tables: 5:45 – 7:30 pm InterContinental Hotel
Grand Ballroom, 3rd floor
888 Howard Street, San Francisco CA GET CRUNCHUP TICKETS NOW, courtesy of Eventbrite
$395 all-inclusive pass through midnight pst, Monday, November 16
$495 through November 20, subject to availability SPONSORSHIPS
The CrunchUp also provides an amazing sponsorship platform for start-ups and brands to reach both conference and networking attendees. Please contact Heather Harde or Jeanne Logozzo to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. PRESS
Bloggers and journalists can request a press pass by contacting Daniel Brusilovsky. CRUNCHUP AGENDA 9:00 – 9:30 AM From RSS To Realtime: A Conversation With Twitter COO Dick Costolo 9:30 – 11:00 AM Roundtable: Filtering The Stream. Getting Rid of the Noise. Facebook, VP of Product Chris Cox
Google, Google Fellow, Amit Singhal
Seesmic, CEO Loic Le Meur
Futurity Ventures, investor/entrepreneur Edo Segal
CrowdEye, CEO Ken Moss
Microsoft, GM of FUSE Labs, Lili Cheng
Facebook, director of Platform Bret Taylor
Thing Labs/Brizzly, CEO Jason Shellen
Angel Investor Ron Conway 11:00 – 11:15 AM Break 11:15 – 11:45 AM The Social Enterprise: A Conversation With Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff 11:45 – 12:30 PM Where Is The Stream Going? Tomorrow's Killer Apps (Demos) Hot Potato (event streams, launch)
Seesmic (a special surprise)
Rippol (video streams, public launch)
Stealth Startup (RT news streams)
Stealth Startup (RT image search)
Realtime Pitch From The Audience* 12:30 – 2:00 PM Lunch 2:00 – 2:45 PM Where Is The Stream Going? Tomorrow's Killer Apps (Demos) PlyMedia (new product launch)
StatusNet (DIY microblogging, launch)
Tweetmeme (new product launch)
Stealth Startup (live video streams)
Stealth Startup (RT social address book)
Realtime Pitch From the Audience* 2:45 – 3:30 PM Media Streams: Are These The Ultimate Marketing Vehicles?
DailyBooth, co-founder Ryan Amos
Ad.ly, CEO Sean Rad
Hollywood agent, Robin Bechtel (digital strategist for Britney Spears, Warner Bros. Records)
more (TBA) 3:30 – 3:45 Break 3:45 – 4:30 Geo Streams: We Know Where You Are, Right Now
Foursquare, CEO Dennis Crowley
Twitter, GEO API engineer Ryan Sarver
Google, Steve Lee, Group Product Manager Google Maps for Mobile and Google Latitude
SimpleGeo, founder Matt Galligan
Hot Potato, founder Justin Shaffer
Mixer Labs, CEO Elad Gil 4:30 – 5:00 Can We Kill Email Already? All Aboard The Micro-Message Bus
A discussion with Paul Bucheit (Facebook/Friendfeed/Gmail) and Rob Goldman, CEO Threadsy 5:00 – 5:45 PM Where The Realtime Rubber Meets The Road: When Does The Serious Money Come In? Angel investor, Ron Conway
Microsoft, corporate VP for Strategic and Emerging Business Development, Dan'l Lewin
Charles River Ventures, VC George Zachary
Accel Partners, VC Andrew Braccia
Facebook, VP of Platform, Bret Taylor 5:45 – 7:30 PM Realtime After Party Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Google Latitude Now Tells You Where You've Been
November 10, 2009 at 7:41 pm | |
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Don't you sometimes wish you had a map of every place you've ever been? Well, if the concept of such detailed self-tracking doesn't creep you out, you can now do that with Google Latitude, the mobile app that lets you broadcast your location to your friends. Google Latitude just turned on Location History as a new feature in Google Latitude. Whenever Google Latitude is on, it records your location, and you can go back to see where you've been. To mitigate some of the obvious privacy issues this brings up, only you can see your location history, not your friends. And you can delete any location from your history, like that Dunkin Donuts you tried to stick up last night when you had the munchies. Another new feature is location alerts. You can now get an alert anytime a friend of yours who allows you to see their location on Google Latitude is nearby. To cut down on constant alerts every time you go to the office or home, it tries to learn where you go every day, and only gives you an alert when you are in a place it deems to be "unusual." In order for the alerts to work, your location history needs to be enabled, so the two features go hand in hand. Geo streams such as the ones produced by Google Latitude are becoming increasingly common. In fact, we are devoting an entire panel to Geo Stream sat eour Realtime CrunchUp on November 20. Steve Lee, the group product manager for Google Latitude, will be on that panel. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Google Expands Free Holiday WiFi Program To 47 Airports
November 10, 2009 at 7:37 pm | |
| |  Well, the spirit of giving arrived a little early this year! For my birthday last month, Google announced it was partnering to offer free Wi-Fi on all Virgin America flights until January 15th. Great, thanks Google, now I have to check the feeds even while flying at 500MPH. But I guess that just wasn't enough kindness to satisfy the Goog. They've just announced that they're going to be extending the free Wi-Fi to 47 entire airports. And not only that, but there's a raft of giveaways, charity matching, and other nonsense in the bargain as well. I'm starting to think that it's not "Don't be evil" so much as "Give away enough stuff that people forget about the evil." Maybe that's disingenuous. In fact, I'm sure it is. Oh well, 'tis the season for moral ambiguity.
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| | Antares: Friend of misleading singers, enemy of misleading apps
November 10, 2009 at 7:10 pm | |
| |  Here's a bit of App Store drama for you: Antares Audio Tech, the company that built the underlying technology licensed for the popular "I am T-Pain" iPhone App, has unleashed their lawyers on Steamboat Mountain Designs, an indie developer and maker of the now-removed iPhone app, "AutoTuner."
Why? Well, it turns out that the term "Auto-Tune" — which due to the recent spike in usage in pop music has come to be misused almost as often as the term "photoshop" — is trademarked by Antares. In a cease and desist letter, Antares claims that "Steamboat's use of 'AutoTuner' is virtually identical to Antares' AUTO-TUNE(R) mark, simply adding an 'r' at the end of the mark and removing a hyphen, and is used in connection with a software program that is directly competitive and functionally identical to Antares' AUTO-TUNE(R) product." Read the rest of this post at MobileCrunch >> Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| | MSN Video Is Now Bing Videos
November 10, 2009 at 6:28 pm | |
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Capitalizing on the Bing brand, Microsoft is consolidating MSN Video into Bing Videos. If you go to video.msn.com it redirects to Bing Video. The new video search destination lets you both search for videos on the Web and watch them within the Bing player. The main video page is set up to help you browse and discover videos, with featured videos in a large player across the top and tabbed categories below that including editorial picks, viral clips, "Last Night on TV", and the "Best of Bing." A lot of this looks like a direct port from MSN Video. there is still even a tab called "Most Watched On MSN Video." They might want to change that now. Bing Video brings in videos from YouTube, Hulu, ABC and more, and directly hosts 900 TV shows. When you search for a show like True Blood, you get Bing's familiar guided navigation on the left, which lets you narrow down your search by season, episodes, trailers, length, and format. The Bing video player also has a lights-out mode. You kind of get the feeling that Bing doesn't want you to leave. Of course, neither does Yahoo Video, Google Video, Blinkx, or most other video search engines these days. But Bing Videos is such a better brand. What MSN property will be subsumed into Bing next? Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Google's Go: A New Programming Language That's Python Meets C++
November 10, 2009 at 6:00 pm | |
| |  Big news for developers out there: Google has just announced the release of a new, open sourced programming language called Go. The company says that Go is experimental, and that it combines the performance and security benefits associated with using a compiled language like C++ with the speed of a dynamic language like Python. Go's official mascot is Gordon the gopher, seen here.
Here's how Google describes Go in its blog post: Go attempts to combine the development speed of working in a dynamic language like Python with the performance and safety of a compiled language like C or C++. In our experiments with Go to date, typical builds feel instantaneous; even large binaries compile in just a few seconds. And the compiled code runs close to the speed of C. Go is designed to let you move fast. We're hoping Go turns out to be a great language for systems programming with support for multi-processing and a fresh and lightweight take on object-oriented design, with some cool features like true closures and reflection. For more details check out Golang.org. To get things started the right way, here's Go's rendition of Hello World!: 05 package main 07 import fmt "fmt" // Package implementing formatted I/O. 09 func main() {
10 fmt.Printf("Hello, world; or Καλημέρα κόσμε; or こんにちは 世界n");
11 }
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Hate It Or Love It, Twitter's New Retweet Style Is Rolling Out
November 10, 2009 at 5:56 pm | |
| |  Yes, Twitter is in the process of rolling out its new Retweet functionality to a more users, the service confirmed today. Based on the number of tips we've received, and the number of TechCrunch staff members who now see the functionality, it would seem that today's roll-out is pretty large.
So what's the verdict? Some people love it, some people hate it. It is definitely a significant change to the way people are accustomed to using Twitter, so it will undoubtedly take some time for most users to get used to. Some may call this "Facebook Syndrome" (users always complain when Facebook changes something, even if it's for the better), I call it "human nature" (people generally dislike change). If you do happen to have it now, here's a few interesting notes about the new feature (at least on twitter.com): - First, there is a new Retweets area in the right side bar. This allows you to see "Retweets by others", "Retweets by you", and "Your tweets, retweeted". While the UI for the main homepage retweets can be a bit confusing at times, this Retweet area is laid out pretty nicely, as it is easy to see who exactly retweeted what.
- Second, as co-founder Evan Williams noted today, there is an easy way to turn off retweets from individual users. Simply click on their profile and make sure the Retweet logo (the circular arrows) below their name is not highlighted green. This means that it's off and you will not see Retweets from that user in your timeline. That's great for users who go overboard with the feature and muck up your stream.
- Third, if you do hate the new Retweet way, just don't use it. Nothing is stopping you from still using the "RT …" syntax. The new Retweets simply give you an easy way to highlight something to your followers with the click of a button.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Old Line Banker Puts $1 Million Into P2P Lender Prosper
November 10, 2009 at 5:55 pm | |
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Prosper.com, a popular peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the U.S., has received a $1 million infusion from Nigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One, via his venture capital firm QED Investors. This brings the company's total funding to over $41 million from Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Fidelity Ventures and Benchmark Capital, among other investors. Prosper pioneered the idea of concept of people-to-people lending in the U.S with its launch in 2006. Unfortunately, the startup hit a rough patch last year when the SEC stopped all lending on the platform because the company didn't register as a seller of securities. With the new climate of heightened regulatory oversight in light of the financial meltdown, the SEC is being more judicious about overseeing financial institutions. The startup was able to re-launch its site over the summer after the SEC gave Prosper the OK to facilitate peer-to-peer lending. Prosper became the first and thus only Internet auction-based P2P loans platform to have its registration statement declared effective by the SEC. Prosper is currently available to lenders in California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Borrowing is permitted in the District of Columbia and all states except Iowa, Kansas, Maine, and North Dakota. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Exclusive: Saul Klein On Seedcamp's Past, Present And Future
November 10, 2009 at 5:34 pm | |
| |  Today Saul Klein, chairman and co-founder of Seedcamp, the pan-European programme for early stage startups, blogged a long post about Seedcamp's structure and history. But over the last few weeks I've been meeting Saul to tease out, over long conversations, where Seedcamp is at and where it's going.
The debate is an important one, in part because Seedcamp, as the only Pan-european YCombinator-style organisation, now has a position that is largely unmatched at this level. That is at once a great thing for Europe – afterall, there was nothing else like it before, and Europe really needed a pan-European Seed fund which could also educate young startups. It's also a potential challenge both for Seedcamp to explain how it operates – after all, despite its laudable openness to date, let's not forget it's a business – and for those that want to sit outside the burgeoning Seedcamp ecosystem. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Urbanspoon Expands To The Urban Workforce With A BlackBerry App
November 10, 2009 at 5:24 pm | |
| |  In major metropolitan areas, the BlackBerry at lunchtime is a force to be reckoned with. And now it can be a device to help those urbanities actually find a place to eat with the launch of Urbanspoon for BlackBerry.
Urbanspoon has been one of the most popular apps for the iPhone since it launched alongside the App Store in the summer of 2008. By blending location data with a fun, accelerometer-based way of finding good nearby restaurants, it even caught Apple's eye, which soon began featuring it in its television commercials, fueling its success. And that success led to IAC eventually purchasing the self-funded startup in April of this year for a price in the seven-figure range. But Urbanspoon didn't stop thinking about what to do next, and the first stop is the BlackBerry. It just made sense since there's a good overlap between the type of people who use BlackBerrys and the type who use Urbanspoon, co-founder Ethan Lowry tells us. So the company teamed up with Xtreme Labs, a popular BlackBerry app shop, to create the app. Like its iPhone brethren, the app features the familiar slot machine-style interface to allow you to tailor your restaurant searches. For devices like the Storm, which has an accelerometer, you can use the app by shaking it. For other BlackBerrys, you simply click a button to set the wheels rolling. "It's one of the snazziest BlackBerry apps there is," Lowry says. The reason Urbanspoon outsourced part of the development of the app rather than do it all in-house like they did with the iPhone is because there are too many types of BlackBerrys that need different versions. For example, there are four different versions of the Urbanspoon BlackBerry app alone, we're told. Despite it being acquired by a large company, Urbanspoon remains a small team, and they simply don't have the resources to devote to all these different devices. But the team is already thinking ahead. Lowry said there was some debate as to whether they should go with BlackBerry or Android first as their next target. He's excited about Android now, as opposed to a year ago when things were still up in the air about the platform, and believes that it will definitely be their next target. Other platforms like Windows Mobile and webOS (which the Palm Pre runs) will have to wait. Though the team is also debating crowd-sourcing the creation of apps for other platforms to its users — an approach with other small teams like Foursquare are taking. In terms of monetization of the app, it remains for now mostly a user grab. There will be limited monetization through ads and the like (which BlackBerry has a revenue share agreement for), but it will be minimal, Lowry says. Go here to get the app, it will work on most of the newer BlackBerrys. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Le Web Releases The List For Its Startup Competition
November 10, 2009 at 5:19 pm | |
| |  Well, after a tonne of entries and a pretty intense sifting process, Le Web, the annual gathering of the tech tribes in Paris, has announced the names of the 16 startups that will present during the startup competition — organised for the first time this year in partnership with TechCrunch Europe.
The companies selected are either existing companies launching new products or new startups entirely. As you can probably tell from the list, Le Web is very much going back to its roots. This is Le Web's 6th edition and the startup competition has been going on since 2006 (the 4th edition is this year). So we'll be using this platform to help some of the earliest stage companies get traction with their ideas. I think it's going to be exciting to watch. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Like Karaoke? You'll Go (Lady) Gaga Over iOKi's iPhone App
November 10, 2009 at 4:40 pm | |
| |  Karaoke fans will soon get the chance to turn their iPhones into full-fledged karaoke machines, thanks to an upcoming new application called iOKi. This is no wannabe karaoke app either — music sensation Lady Gaga has partnered with iOKi to launch her own fully Gaga-ized version of the app featuring some of her most popular songs, which will make its debut alongside the upcoming release of her new album on November 23.
iOKi is looking to become the definitive karaoke experience on the iPhone. Instead of slapping some lyrics on low quality MIDI files (as lesser apps have tried), iOKi has actually worked with all of the major labels to license their content. I spoke with the iOKi founders Les Borsai and Elias Manousos who outlined some of the complicated rights issues involved with karaoke. Suffice to say, it was no easy task, but they think it will also make it hard for competitors to encroach on iOKi's territory in the future. Using the app is pretty straightforward: you choose a song, and the app launches into its viewing mode, where the lyrics pop up on your iPhone screen just as they would on more tradional karaoke machines. Depending on your setup, you can have the backing music and vocals come from either your phone's headphone jack or its built-in speaker (your vocals can go in through either your headphone's built-in microphone or the phone mic). The interface is easy enough to figure out within a few seconds, though I think it looks a bit bland given the iPhone's penchant for glossy things. Once you've recorded a song, the app will present you with a link that you can use to share your recording across the web.
iOKi is launching its Lady Gaga themed app on November 23 at a $4.99 pricepoint, which will come with five of the artist's songs including Poker Face and Paparazzi. Each of these songs will be generated from the original master recordings, rather than the sound-alikes that are common in the karaoke business. The app will also include access to an integrated store that includes over 3,000 songs available for 99 cents apiece from bands ranging from the Backstreet Boys to Van Halen (the company says they'll soon have over 10,000 songs). Many of these are from soundalike recordings, though some of them will be based on master tapes as well. A few weeks after the Lady Gaga launch iOKi will release a more generic version that's focused on the store. 
iOKi is clearly looking to tap into the success of other music-themed hits on the iPhone like Smule's I Am T-Pain, and Tapulous's Tap Tap Revenge, and it looks like they may have a winner on their hands. The company was initially inspired to go into karaoke after Manousos noticed that a Jason Mraz karaoke song has been viewed a whopping 2 million times. The team soon discovered that the karaoke indsutry is worth over a billion dollars, but that much of it is fragmented — consumers can purchase standalone machines, but they have to deal with purchasing specialized karaoke CDs, many of which are of poor quality (and sometimes don't even have the proper license deals in place). The space is ripe for a shakeup. The one picece of the puzzle that iOKi is currently missing is virality — the app actually stores your recordings on a server and lets you Email a link to your friends (you can also manually share this link on Facebook or Twitter). But for the app to really go viral, it should allow users to post their karaoke recordings directly to Facebook's News Feeds. iOKi says that they actually have the infrastructure in place to support this kind of sharing, but that they still need to integrate Facebook Connect, which will be coming out in the first update. Fortunately the app may not need much virality at first, as Lady Gaga will be promoting it in the marketing leading up to her album launch.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Apple Adds A Ton Of HD Content. Including Movies I Would Actually Buy.
November 10, 2009 at 2:49 pm | |
| |  After previously only having an option to rent HD movies, back in March, Apple added the option to be able to buy HD as well. The problem? A complete and utter lack of options. Even now, some 8 months later, there were only a few dozen HD movies you could buy, and the majority were movies like The Midnight Meat Train — movies you probably had no desire to buy, let alone for the amped-up $19.99 HD price. Today, that changed.
Apple has just added a range of HD movies available for purchase on iTunes. Here's the kicker: There are actually some good movies, finally. Sure, previously you could grab a few gems like Casino Royale. But now, for example, a total of 9 James Bond films are in HD (though sadly, only two of the Connery ones are, and Goldfinger is not one of them). So what else is available in HD now? Blockbusters like The Rock, Top Gun, The Sixth Sense, and Cloverfield. Award-winning movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, There Will Be Blood, The Queen, and No Country For Old Men. Pixar latest masterpiece Up is also available in HD. And you can also pre-order movies like Star Trek, which comes out next week, in HD. It's hard to tell exactly how much HD content Apple added today since you basically have to click on each film to see if it's a) available in HD and b) available to buy in HD. But it's a lot, and more importantly, as I said, there's finally a fair amount of content worth purchasing. Interestingly enough, Apple is touting its new HD movies as "HD Movies on your Mac or PC." You notice something missing? Apple TV. Yes, Apple's red-headed step child continues to get no marketing love despite the fact that HD movies not only play on the device, but I would argue that is still the best reason to get HD content from iTunes. Though movies are not Blu-ray HD quality, they're pretty darn good and noticeably better than standard quality content from iTunes, especially on big HD TVs. It's good to see that after months of a slow trickle of mainly junk, Apple has opened the HD pipeline quite a bit more. Now if they could only get iTunes Extras along with HD for most films, the movie area of the store might actually be able to start living up to its music portion older brother. Having all movies available to rent the day they come out on DVD wouldn't hurt either. But we all know Hollywood hates our freedom in that regard. Of course, on the flip side, all this HD content to buy also means the more storage you'll need for these files. HD movies on iTunes tend to range from 3 to 5 GB each. Apple still needs a solution for that eventual problem, like iTunes in the cloud. 
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Layoffs Reported At Adobe
November 10, 2009 at 2:40 pm | |
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We've heard multiple reports that layoffs are taking place at Adobe today. One source reports that Adobe is laying off 15 percent of its staff, but this is unconfirmed. There are also Tweets about the layoffs on Twitter. Last December, Adobe laid off 600 workers (or 8 percent of its staff) due to the recession. It's unclear the reason for this round of layoffs but Adobe just closed the Omniture deal and layoffs could be taking place as the company streamlines the business. We've contacted Adobe for confirmation. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Test Driving The World's Fastest Golf Cart
November 10, 2009 at 2:28 pm | |
| | Last week Tesla asked me if I'd like to take the new Tesla Roadster Sport for a day to see what I thought. This is the newer Tesla Roadster that shaves 2/10 of a second off the 0-60 time, and the car is a couple of inches bigger than the original (making it possible for me to fit my 6′4 frame into into it comfortably). I agreed immediately. The only rules were that only I could drive it (some nonsense about insurance), and I had to have it back by 6 pm. I did return the vehicle on time, but as you can see from the video just about everyone from the office and most of my friends came by to take it for a spin, too.  I've been in a Tesla before but this is the first time i've driven one. With no gears and a silent motor, the experience is like driving a golf cart. At least it would be if golf carts could hit 100 mph on the freeway on ramp and hugged the road like it was glued there.
Thanks Tesla. Sorry about that scratch in the bumper. Video care of Animoto. Which rocks. | Specifications | 
| | Model: | 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport | | Vehicle Style: | 2-seat, open-top, rear-drive sports car | | Price: | Base Price: $121,000 (car we drove: $155,850) | | Motor: | 375 volt AC induction air-cooled electric motor with variable frequency drive | | Power: | 288 HP (215kW) @ 4,400-5,800 rpm | | Torque: | 295 ft/lb (400 Nm) @ 0-5,100 rpm | | Transmission: | Single speed fixed gear with electrically-actuated parking lock mechanism and mechanical lubrication pump | | Suspension: | Four-wheel independent. Upper and lower unequal length wishbones. Co-axial coil spring/adjustable telescopic damper. Adjustable sway bar. | | Brakes: | Hydraulically operated. Tandem master cylinder with vacuum servo and anti-lock braking system. Front and rear ventilated disc. Cable operated self adjusting hand brake on rear calipers. | | Performance: | 0-60: 3.7 seconds
Top Speed: 125 mph (electronically limited) | | Dimensions: | Wheelbase: 92.6 inches
Length: 155.4 inches
Width: 72.9 inches
Height: 44.35 inches
Weight: 2723 pounds | | Battery: | Custom microprocessor-controlled lithium-ion battery with 6,831 individual cells | | Battery Consumption: | 29 kW-hr/100 mi city; 32 kW-hr/100 mi highway | | Expected Battery Life: | Seven years or 100,000 miles | | Range: | 244 miles | Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| | When It Comes To In-App Purchases On The iPhone, Games, Social Networking, And Books Rule
November 10, 2009 at 12:24 pm | |
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Now that in-app purchasing has been live for a few weeks in the iTunes App Store, and Apple is now ranking the top-grossing apps, whether they start out as free or paid, we have some initial data on what kinds of apps are pulling in the most money from in-app purchases. (In-app purchases allow apps to offer a free version and then make money by requiring consumers to pay for additional features or content). Today, Distimo put out a report (download it here) which breaks down the top 40 grossing in-app purchasing titles by category (see chart below). Games, social networking, and book apps are doing the best job upselling consumers from free apps to paid enhancements. Music, news, and finance apps, not so much. Games top the rankings of these best performing apps, with ngmoco's Eliminate Pro (iTunes link) currently the No. 8 top-grossing app, validating ngmoco's shift from a paid to freemium model. Mafia Wars (iTunes link) is another example. Seven of the top 40 grossing apps with in-app purchasing are games. After games, social networking apps such as iRose (iTunes link), TweetPush (iTunes link), and Boxcar (iTunes link) are doing the best job convincing users to pay up after they download the free versions. Social networking apps take six of the top 40. Then comes books, with four of the top 40, including Comics (iTunes link) It seems that apps which are addictive (like games) persistent (like social communications apps), or lengthy and easy to sample (like books) are doing the best with in-app purchases. It trickles down after that. There is one music app in the top performing apps—RJDJ (iTunes link), one news app, one finance app, and so on. People just don't want to pay for songs, news, or stock quotes. 
The Distimo report also compares the average price for the top 100 mobile apps in the iTunes App Store, the Android Market and the Blackberry App World. The Average price of an app in iTunes is the cheapest at $3.42, followed by Android at $4.30, and Blackberry Apps at $5.61. With more than 10 times as many apps as any of the other app stores, all that competition and proliferation of $0.99 apps probably explains why iTunes apps are the cheapest, even among the top 100. Also, Blackberry apps all have a minimum price of $2.99. Research in Motion just announced that developers will be able to include in-app transactions next year. 
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Yahoo Loses Yet Another Senior Executive
November 10, 2009 at 12:16 pm | |
| |  I corrected the headline for one of the articles I published earlier today about an investment made by Bassel Ojjeh in ArabCrunch.NET.
Turns out Ojjeh is actually no longer senior vice president and head of Yahoo!'s strategic data solutions group. The man apparently left the company a few weeks ago but hadn't yet found the time to change his LinkedIn profile. Bassel Ojjeh started his career in the software business as developer and later senior manager of Fox Software, which merged with Microsoft in 1992. Ojjeh stayed with the company for another 8 years and went on to co-found digiMine, which later morphed into Revenue Science and changed names again some time after to finally settle for AudienceScience (for now). Ojjeh was one of the co-founders of data mining and warehousing solutions provider DMX Group, a company that was acquired by Yahoo in August 2004. He became senior vice president and head of the new business unit (strategic data solutions group or SDS group), whose team members were responsible for combing through the dozens terabytes of data that Yahoo users generate on a daily basis by clicking links, weeding out the relevant bits, compressing and storing it. Ojjeh told me he'll be engaging in a couple more angel investments in the USA and the Middle East, and that he's currently already set to start a new company. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Vidly Brings HD Video To Twitter
November 10, 2009 at 12:00 pm | |
| |  First, there were the Twitter picture services. Soon, there were a lot of those. Then, there were the Twitter video services. And now, there are getting to be a lot of those. So how do you choose which one to use? Most people base it on two things: First, third-party Twitter client support. And second, features. Today, Vidly is launching one such feature.
Vidly is claiming to be the first HD video service for Twitter. HD video on the web has always been sort of a hazy thing due to varying expectations of resolutions and bitrates, but it seems safe to say that Vidly's video is the highest quality out there among its competitors. Several of them offer video quality that can be grainy or choppy, but these new Vidly videos are smooth and clear. So why bother? After all, most of these videos are relatively short and storing and serving HD clearly costs more. Vidly is doing it because they see it as a great tool for brands to use to further promote themselves on Twitter. That makes sense, if someone like National Geographic is going to tweet out videos, it probably doesn't want them to look bad. In fact, Vidly's biggest competitor here may be that these brands figure out how to store their own HD media and simply tweet that out. Along with the HD launch, Vidly is hosting a new competition alongside mobile video camera maker Flip. Each Friday for a few weeks, Vidly and Flip will give away a branded MinoHD device. To enter, you simply have to tweet something with the #vidly hashtag. Vidly underwent a namechange (it was TwitVid.io) in August, and picked up some fresh funding. It already has several brands using its service, now it's just a matter of convincing them, and others, that it's the go-to Twitter video service. It's also worth noting that any HD which was previously uploaded to Vidly will now also be in HD. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Bada Bing, Bada Boom: Samsung Releases a New Mobile OS
November 10, 2009 at 11:53 am | |
| |  As Sesame Street is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary now seems like as good a time as any for us to practice our counting...of mobile operating systems/platforms. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Darn, my hand ran out of fingers! Well, no matter, Samsung thinks there is plenty of room for more and has taken the wraps off its own, new open mobile platform, bada.
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| | Connect To The CrunchBase Firehose: Sign Up With Facebook Connect
November 10, 2009 at 11:39 am | |
| |  For the past several weeks, we've been making improvements to CrunchBase to build a more engaging product for the people that drive it – which is to say, "everybody". Since it was launched, Crunchbase has always been a freely editable repository of information about technology companies. Since February 2008, we've received over 100,000 edits from anonymous users in addition to the copious amounts of information that TechCrunch writers funnel to it on a regular basis.
We're excited to announce that these contributions no longer have to remain unattributed. Starting today, anyone with a Facebook account can sign up for an account on CrunchBase by using Facebook Connect. Edits will still be moderated (after all, this is the Internet we're talking about here), but users who prove themselves to be trustworthy will, with time, start to see additional privileges associated with their accounts. All of these edits represent a treasure trove of information, so we've also been working on ways to better present the edits as they occur. Visitors to the CrunchBase homepage will now notice a list of recent milestones – a "stream," if you will – that represents the most recent changes to the database. We've filtered out the more trivial edits in an effort to make this the kind of real-time information that even Paul Carr could love. These funding rounds, acquisitions, investments, IPOs, and other major milestones will now also appear on the individual pages that they relate to. Lastly, since it's always better to let individuals choose what news they care about, we're providing a way for people who sign up for a CrunchBase account to see a summary of these milestones only from the products, people and companies that are interesting to them. Logged-in users now have the ability to follow entries in the database and have relevant updates appear on their home page (sound familiar?). If you are a developer and want to use CrunchBase data, we've got a very open and flexible API. And make sure to let us know when you build an app that uses CrunchBase data, we like to highlight them. We hope you enjoy the new features, and are always taking suggestions for ways to make CrunchBase better. You can keep up to date with the latest features on the CrunchBase blog. And if you like what we're doing, by all means, be our friend. 
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Triple Engine Browser Lunascape (Firefox, Internet Explorer And Chrome All-In-One) Now Supports Triple Add-Ons
November 10, 2009 at 11:38 am | |
| |  Lunascape, the only browser out there that can handle all three major web rendering engines — Firefox's Gecko, Internet Explorer's Trident and WebKit (Safari and Chrome) – received a makeover. The new version (released today), Lunascape 6.0 ORION, is free, in beta stage, Windows-only (Windows 7 is supported) and available in 11 languages (English, Chinese, Spanish, German, Japanese, French and others). Tokyo- and Silicon Valley-based Lunascape Corp. made its browser available to an international audience for the first time back in November 2008 (with Lunascape 5, which is the official and stable version and can be installed with 6.0 on the same PC).
The main selling point of the browser is still intact: Lunascape users can instantly switch between Firefox, IE or Safari/Chrome mode by right-clicking tabs or by clicking on the engine switcher button on the bottom left of the screen. The browser should come in handy for web developers and designers who have to test sites for browser compatibility or for those people who aren't satisfied with either one of the five big browsers (in case there are any). But the Lunascape developers say they aim at establishing a "Unified Browsing Platform" for everyone. Their ultimate goal is to help general web users overcome the hassles they encounter when using IE at work and Firefox at home, for example (different UIs, bookmarks, settings, add-ons etc.). Screenshot: Triple engine selection
 But what's new in Lunascape 6.0?
Probably the biggest change in comparison to version 5 is that in addition to IE and Lunascape-specific add-ons, Lunascape now supports Firefox add-ons, too. The browser still doesn't work with Chrome or Safari plug-ins, but Firefox add-on support was the most requested feature coming from users in the past year. And a new wizard makes it possible to transfer all of your add-ons from Firefox 3.5 to Lunascape 6.0 automatically if you're so inclined. Screenshot: Firefox add-on in Lunascape 6.0 browser
 Users can now operate tabs in any kind of window split view, meaning you can compare any given web page rendered by the three different engines side-by-side in one browser window (vertical, horizontal, thumbnail, cascade). This makes a lot of sense and should actually have been included in the previous version already. Screenshot: Multi-view tab display
 Some smaller revisions include a new extra-minimalist interface available that does away with a lot of the clutter of Lunascape 's previous version and a revamped "floating" sidebar that can display a number of dedicated add-ons (i.e. a minimap). I've tested Lunascape 6.0 for a few days now, and the browser is still a little buggy but pretty stable for a beta release. Granted, the changes from version 5 aren't huge, but especially the Firefox add-on support and the new design and interface should make Lunascape 6.0 worth taking for a spin. The race for the ultimate browser continues. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Yahoo Meme Extends To Indonesia
November 10, 2009 at 10:32 am | |
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We've written a lot about Yahoo Meme, Yahoo's new microblogging platform that resembles Twitter. A few weeks Yahoo launched an API for Meme and also shed some light on where the social media site is being used; which seems to be mainly outside the U.S. According to Yahoo, Meme is gaining a following in Brazil, China, the Philippines, India and Turkey. Yahoo initially rolled out Meme in Portuguese, then Spanish and then English. Today, Yahoo is rolling out a native version of Meme in Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia. The Republic of Indonesia, which comprises over 17,500 islands, is the fourth most populous country in the world. With the translation, Meme is actually spelled as "Mim" on the site, but it appears to have much of the same functionality as the other versions of the site. Yahoo meme lets users post their own content (including text, photos, videos, links and more) and repost the content of others with one-click publishing, allows users to follow other Meme users (via one-way connections, no friend authorization is required) and comment on their posts. Meme's content limits are higher than Twitter's—the limit is 2,000 characters. Coincidentally, Twitter also recently made an announcement concerning Indonesia, launching a partnership with Indonesian mobile carrier AXIS to provide Tweets via SMS. While Yahoo Meme may be growing internationally, Twitter is aggressively going after international markets as well. The site most recently launched a version in Spanish and plans to roll out versions in French, German and Italian soon. Hopefully Meme doesn't suffer the same fate as Yahoo's social network in India, SpotM, which didn't even make it to its first birthday. Thanks for the tip Rama. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| | Color Code Your Life With Tom's Planner
November 10, 2009 at 10:00 am | |
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Netherlands-based Startup Tom's Planner is launching their dead-simple web-based project management and planning system lets users create and visualize an online planning schedule. The application is meant to be used by a broad spectrum of consumers, from project managers, event and wedding planners to busy soccer moms or personal assistants. Tom's Planner lets you create color-coded project plans and schedules, share them anyone in a team or groups, embed project schedules, and export to Microsoft Project. To help users get started, Tom's Planner provides project planning templates for website designers, construction projects, event and wedding planners, vacation home rentals and personnel schedules. And users can save their projects to their hard drives instead of storing the file in the cloud. The startup faces competition from Microsoft Project, LiquidPlanner, Primavera, and others. But the beauty of the application is that it's simple to use, even for those users who aren't particularly tech-savvy. And it's free (for now). Tom's Planner is offering a free, one-year account to all new users who sign up for the public beta launch by December 31. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Sun Microsystems Kills Social Programming Project Zembly
November 10, 2009 at 9:44 am | |
| |  Sun Microsystems sure had some very nice things to say about the zembly project when it was introduced a couple of years ago:
We like to say that zembly is the development environment for Sun's bold vision—an application development environment that not only targets the web as its native platform, but uses cutting-edge web innovations such as web services, social networking, and Web 2.0, to change the way applications are built, deployed, scaled, and delivered to where users congregate. Zembly was an interesting attempt to lower the barrier of entry to writing applications for social platforms such as Facebook, Orkut, Meebo, OpenSocial and the iPhone by sharing services and widgets with the developer community. But apparently, Sun's bold vision didn't quite cut it, so it's cutting zembly loose and shutting the service down at the end of this month. In a message sent to its users and posted on its website, the zembly team says the service will be suspended on November 30th, and the FAQ teaches us that all applications and services currently on zembly will be made unavailable, along with the user data of all members of the community. Users have until the end of this month to get hold of their application code and widgets. Zembly is now part of the illusive TechCrunch deadpool. 
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Confirmed: Playfire Gaming Social Network Secures $2.1m Series A
November 10, 2009 at 8:37 am | |
| |  Playfire, a social network for gamers, has secured $2.1m of Series A funding. The news was first reported this weekend in the Sunday Times newspaper but, as is their usual form, with key details missing, including the full list of investors. What else do you expect from a newspaper that doesn't even use Twitter properly?
The round was led by Atomico Ventures (founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis of Skype fame), in conjunction with Michael Birch (founder of Bebo), Brent Hoberman (co-founder of LastMinute.com), William Reeve and Alex Chesterman (co-founders of LOVEFiLM) and David Gardner (former COO of Electronic Arts and now CEO of Atari). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Source: Jajah In Middle Of Bidding War That Could Drive Price Up To $400 Million
November 10, 2009 at 8:26 am | |
| |  There appears to be a good old bidding war going on for another VoIP startup, Jajah, following yesterday's news about the acquisition of Gizmo5 by Google, a source in Silicon Valley with knowledge of the talks informs us.
Details are scarce at the moment, but Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Telefónica Europe (O2) are said to be looking to buy the venture capital-backed company for a price ranging from $200M to $400M. We're digging for more information. Jajah was founded back in 2005 and in March 2006 introduced the world to a pretty decent consumer service that allowed cellphone users access Jajah's low-cost calling system through their mobile devices, over the Web. Jajah went on to raise $28 million in VC funding from investors like Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, Deutsche Telekom and Intel. The Skype rival amassed about 10 million users when in April 2008 they announced a deal that would bring its premium voice services to nearly 100 million Yahoo Messenger users more. The deal proved crucial for Jajah, which connected its 1 billionth call last Summer. And that was before it turned to Twitter to spread the voice service even more. Jajah says it currently serves over 25 million consumers and business callers in more than 122 countries, and provides calling access to more than 200 destinations globally. It's unclear how much revenue it is generating from these users, but it's apparently enough – or has enough potential to scale and grow – to make for an interesting strategical acquisition target for companies with deep enough pockets to engage in a bidding war. It's odd to see O2 mentioned as one of the companies who's sitting at the negotiation tables, and I consider Microsoft and Cisco to be more likely buyers. Both of them sit on heaps of cash and are undeniably acquisition-hungry, and Redmond has the added benefit of having entered into a partnership with Jajah on enterprise IP communication solutions. The price range seems to be on the high end, but that's what happens when a bidding war goes the way the company that's on the table (and its financial backers) would want it to go. We're cataloging this as a solid, plausible rumor for now and will update with more information / confirmation as soon as it comes in. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Alice.com Sweeps In $6 Million For Household Goods E-Commerce Platform
November 10, 2009 at 7:55 am | |
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Alice.com, the retail platform for household goods, has closed a $6 million Series B round of funding from private investors, bringing the startup's total funding up to over $10 million. We previously scooped the startup's $4 million infusion (which was part of this round) in September. Alice.com raised $4.3 million in Series A funding from Kengonsa Capital Partners and DaneVest Capital in November of 2008. Launched in June, Alice.com is an retail platform for consumer packaged goods manufacturers, like Procter & Gamble, to sell directly to consumers instead of going through retail channels like Target or Wal-Mart. On the consumer side, Alice.com lets users create a profile of their household (i.e. how many adults, kids, babies) and then the site will keep track of items and reminds users with emails when they are running low and need to reorder. Each shipment is bundled together in a single 'Alice' box, delivered directly to the consumer's door, with no shipping costs. Alice's co-founder and CEO Brian Wiegand told me that the new funds will be used to bring on additional home goods partners, such as Procter & Gamble. Wiegand adds that the site has steadily added many of the well-known manufacturers to its partnership base, but declined to name which brands have signed on. As we wrote in our initial review of the platform, we are fans of Alice.com thanks to a competitive pricing plan, an well-understood business model (the site makes money via advertising) and experienced entrepreneurs at the helm of the startup. Co-founders and serial entrepreneurs Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire have managed to sell three companies in the past +10 years, most recently flipping social shopping service Jellyfish to Microsoft (which it later used to create Live Search Cashback). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Realtime Booking Site BookingBug Creates Smart Affiliate Model
November 10, 2009 at 7:50 am | |
| |  Online booking and reservation system BookingBug has left beta, been given a new look and announced a raft of new partners. The startup enables any kind of service business to share their availability in realtime – by hour, day, week or as classes, courses or events – and take bookings and enquiries online.
We recently profiled competitor Bookfresh but this site only works for small one-man-bands offering minutes/hour based services. BookingBug has the potential to scale across a much broader range of service businesses, especially with its affiliate program, which lets destination sites earn revenue for showing bookings for businesses that are relevant to their market. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Huddle's Collaboration App To Go On 25 Million HP Business PCs
November 10, 2009 at 6:55 am | |
| |  UK collaboration startup Huddle has secured something of a first for a company of its size, and location. It's signed a two-year deal with Hewlett Packard to enable direct access to its service on the 25 million business PCs HP sells annually.
Huddle will be in a suite of five trial applications included on every HP business computer, starting in the U.S. and extending to the rest of the world. That's quite a big deal for a startup this size – and relatively unusual for one not even based in the U.S. The deal is based on a revenue split with HP on new signups to the service, which effectively offers a discount for HP customers on Huddle's tools. The other programs will include three HP- services and antivirus software from Symantec. The three-year-old company, which raised £2.3m from Eden Ventures in 2007, says it is close to break even and is looking for another round of financing to fund expansion. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | We Know Hollywood Is This Dumb. Et Tu, Netflix?
November 10, 2009 at 5:49 am | |
| |  Back in August, we wrote about the Hollywood movie studios conspiring to keep new release DVDs away from services like Netflix and Redbox for as many as 30 days after their release. The idea behind this from Hollywood's perspective is simple: If people can't rent movies right away, they'll buy more. Sorry, did I say the idea was "simple"? I meant, "idiotic".
At the time, it was reported that Blockbuster, the former video giant that is aging anything but gracefully, was also backing this 30-day window idea (where it might see a 30-day rental exclusive on some titles). With the company bleeding money, it shouldn't be surprising that they're aligning themselves with the studios. But more recently, there has been some very disheartening news: Netflix seems to be willing to back this idea too. Yes, the poster child for much of what is right about the consumer movie business these days may be on the verge of making a deal with the devil. Let's be clear about what this means: If you're a Netflix subscriber, you will no longer be able to rent new movies until 30 days after they've been released on DVD. The show business trade publication Video Business reported last week that Netflix would be willing to accept this 30-day model for huge discounts on the movies after that period — perhaps as much as 50%. As a business decision, this would seem to make sense since 70% of Netflix's main business is catalog (older) release rentals. As a long-term strategy, this is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Here's what this will do: It may drive sales of DVDs a bit short term. But soon, online movie piracy will pick up to new heights. If the movie studios have nightmares about piracy now, their reality will be truly terrifying with this plan in place. There are two major factors that stop movie piracy from being as bad as music piracy was a few years ago: Broadband speeds and convenience. Let's speak to the latter one first: With services like Netflix, Redbox, iTunes, and the like all offering fairly easy ways to get movies you want, when you want them, it's less of a headache for most people to use them rather than digging around online to get them for free. But with this new 30-day window in place, the masses would be driven online to search for more illegal content — and more importantly, it would begin to fuel a piracy ecosystem for Hollywood content. There would be more people downloading, but also more people sharing. That's the key.  Broadband remains an issue in many parts of the country, but increasingly, it's not as big of one as the studios might believe. With devices like the Xbox 360, Apple TV, PS3, and services like Hulu and YouTube, people are getting used to downloading (or streaming) content over their fast connections. If you take away the convenience of something like Netflix, they will eventually put two and two together that these connections can also be used to get new content online for free, illegally.
Hollywood is making a fatal error with this strategy. In their greed-clouded view, they seem to really believe that most people are only renting movies rather than buying them because they're given an option. Kill the option, kill the problem, right? The truth is that most people are renting movies rather than buying them because the majority of movies released are crap that no one wants to buy. There's a huge difference between paying $3 (or less, with Netflix) to rent a movie that may be entertaining to watch once (or might not be), than having to spend $20 to buy something you don't really want and will have forever. Hollywood assumes that because they've sort of made this type of buy-first, rent-later environment work on services like iTunes and Xbox Live (where it doesn't really work and is just hampering both services) that it will translate to Netflix as well. But if you give a mouse a cookie, then try to take away that cookie, he's going to bite your hand off. What's really befuddling is that Netflix lacks the vision to see thorough this BS. They don't seem to realize that longterm it's going to screw them too. While new movies may not be as core to their business as they are to Redbox (which is suing many of the studios to stop something like this), new movies are the sexy lures that bring in new business. If I can't get at those sexy lures for 30 days, they're not nearly as sexy. The Internet, meanwhile, offers plenty of those sexy lures. Sure, there's some risk in grabbing them, but it's really pretty minimal. Did I mention they're free? Because Hollywood and now Netflix are practically screaming it. [images: Miramax and New Line Cinemas] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| | Babbel Language Site Dumps Freemium, Goes Subscription
November 10, 2009 at 5:28 am | |
| |  [Germany] The new version of Babbel, the language learning startup, is released today, but there's a sting in the tail for the existing 500,000 users who thought it was a Freemium service: they will now all have to pay to use it.
"Babbel is now a paid service. Freemium doesn't work for us," confirms managing director Markus Witte. Now only the first part of any given course can be taken for free, as a trial demo. Full access now costs between $6.65 and $11.95 per month. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Yahoo SVP Bassel Ojjeh Invests In ArabCrunch.NET
November 10, 2009 at 5:27 am | |
| |  Bassel Ojjeh, senior vice president and head of Yahoo!'s strategic data solutions group, has invested an undisclosed amount of capital in ArabCrunch.NET, a social platform for Arab entrepreneurs, investors and technologists.
The platform is a venture by ArabCrunch.com, which like its name suggests kind of does what TechCrunch does but specifically focuses on Arab web and mobile startups. ArabCrunch.NET is launching in private beta today at a conference in Jordan, and will function as a hub where Arab techies, entrepreneurs, scientists, members of the academic community and investors alike can gather and exchange ideas, promote services and build relationships. Ultimately, ArabCrunch.NET aims to accelerate entrepreneurship and technology innovation in the Arab world by building a virtual ecosystem that enables its members to connect with, share knowledge with and support each other. Lofty goal, but an admirable one. (Via @ArabCrunch) Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Too Lazy To Make Your Own Twitter List? Let Conversationlist Do It For You.
November 10, 2009 at 3:39 am | |
| |  Did you get added to a bunch of Twitter lists today with the name "conversationlist"? If so, you're not alone. No, it's not a bug or a worm spreading through Twitter, it's a new service that aims to create a Twitter list for you based on people you actually have conversations with on Twitter.
The idea is very simple: If you've @replied someone in the past day, Conversationlist will add them to your "conversationlist" Twitter list. But this person will only stay on that list as long as you keep talking to them. If the next day you don't @reply them, they're gone. That in and of itself is kind of an interesting way to keep track of people that you find interesting enough to want to directly talk to at any given time. But it gets more interesting when others start following your Conversationlist, because it gives them a glimpse of the people you actually talk to on Twitter. And if you're the type of person who wants to try out Twitter lists but doesn't want to take the time to make one, this is a pretty simple way to create one that could actually be useful. According to Conversationlist, there are only ever 25 people on the list they create for you at any given time. If you want to stop it from updating, simply delete the list on Twitter and Conversationlist will stop building it for you each day. To get it working, you only have to click one button on the Conversationlist site, authorize the service via OAuth, and you're set. Super simple. 
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| | Qik Bumps Up The Recording Resolution For The Droid
November 10, 2009 at 2:55 am | |
| |  As the number of Android-powered handsets on the market continues to expand, so do the technical capabilities of the applications that run on the platform. The Droid, for example, is the first handset to introduce video recording at a resolution 720×480 (more than double that of the 320×240 recording found on most other Android handsets), and app makers are already swooping in to take advantage of it.
The first off the bat is the mobile video broadcasting service Qik, who will later tonight be announcing beta support for the increased resolution. Not only is Qik the first to reach such the new resolution on the Droid, but they're also proudly claiming to be the first of all the mobile streaming services (amongst competitors such as Ustream, Kyte, and Flixwagon) to support such a high resolution in general.
Read the rest of this entry >> Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| | Syncplicity Launches Business Edition For Data Storage In The Cloud
November 10, 2009 at 2:54 am | |
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We recently wrote about data storage and syncing site SugarSync's move to attract more small businesses, and today, another syncing service, Syncplicity, is following suit. The startup is launching a Syncplicity Business Edition that provides centralized file management, automated backup, synchronization, sharing and collaboration for business users. Similar to SugarSync, Box.net or Dropbox, Syncplicity is used to store, share, backup and synchronize files from your computer to the cloud. Syncplicity also offers an open platform that integrates well with web applications. The platform enables developers to extend their web applications directly to the desktop, creating seamless interaction between online applications and files stored locally on the desktop. For example, you can associate any text document directly with Google Docs, Scribd and Zoho. Features of Syncplicity's new service include the ability to allows users access to files from any device as well as web applications no matter where the files were first saved and real-rime backup. Syncplicity's business edition also gives admins central file management to have control over data both inside and outside the corporate firewall. Similar to other syncing services, Syncplicity is easily scalable in terms of storage and number of users. Syncplicity's Business Edition also promises to integrate Microsoft Office and other desktop applications with Google Apps data, as well as other web applications. And as we wrote earlier, Syncplicity offers a public API that allows 3rd parties to tightly integrate with existing solutions, web applications or new clients.The base price for Syncplicity Business Edition is $45 per month for 3 users and 50 GB of storage, or up to 60 GB with an annual subscription. Customers can also add an unlimited number of users and unlimited amount of storage. Launched in April 2008, Syncplicity raised $2.35 million in funding from True Ventures, Frank Marshall and other investors in October of 2008. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| | Zynga's FishVille Gets Out Of The Penalty Box At Midnight
November 10, 2009 at 1:56 am | |
| |  A high-drama and high-stakes ScamVille exchange over the weekend left Zynga in the penalty box. Facebook put their newest social game, FishVille, on ice for advertising violations. In response, Zynga said they'd pull down all advertising offers until further notice.
Zynga's now saying that the game will be live again at midnight tonight. 875,000 users flocked to the aquarium game in its first two days, so I'm sure they'll be glad to see it back. And so far Zynga has lived up to its recent promise. All offers, including legitimate ones like virtual currency for Netflix subscriptions, have been removed from all Zynga games. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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