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12/8 TechCrunch

Brightcove Teams Up With TubeMogul To Power Its Analytics December 7, 2009 at 11:52 pm When Brightcove released a major upgrade to its online video platform last month, one of the new set of features was better analytics. It turns out that Brightcove's new video analytics suite is powered TubeMogul. Professional video publishers who use Brightcove can now measure things like the geographic distribution of their viewers, how many seconds they watch each video, their drop-off rate, number of unique viewers, number of new viewers, as well as total video plays. The two companies have also signed a joint R&D pact to develop new video analytics products exclusively for Brightcove. TubeMogul will also become a marketing partner for Brightcove's paid video hosting, streaming, and advertising services. About 125,000 people use TubeMogul's free video analytics. Many of them are online video professionals Brightcove is hoping to turn into paying subscribers for its new "low-end" $99/month plan. Analytics are an important part of the video equation, especially for advertisers and marketers who need to demonstrate the ROI of spending money on online video. TubeMogul already has an advanced analytics package Brightcove can plug into its latest release. TubeMogul adds Brightcove as a customer and will receive both R&D payments and marketing fees for each new Brightcove client it helps to sign up. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Hold On, MySpace/Imeem Deal Ain't Done Yet, Being Renegotiated December 7, 2009 at 10:53 pm Last month we broke the news that MySpace was acquiring music service iMeem, and that an agreement had been signed between the two companies. All of that was accurate, including the $1 million fire sale price. But despite reports to the contrary, while the deal was signed it never closed (which explains why MySpace hasn't announced it). Sometime between signing and closing some problems came up in due diligence, we've heard. Specifically that some of the hard assets that MySpace was acquiring, hundreds of servers, were leased rather than owned. Meaning that MySpace couldn't buy them. The two sides have feverishly been renegotiating the deal, say our sources. At this point a deal may still be done in the next day or so at an even lower price than the $1 million. Or the deal may be terminated altogether (we're hearing it's likely some sort of deal will still happen). It's also always been unclear exactly how much capital iMeem raised to fund the company. We've tracked just $25 million in announced or leaked deals on CrunchBase. But we've heard the total is much closer to $80 million, including debt and pre-paid royalties to music labels. It's clear that those investors aren't seeing any return at all on that investment. Users, though, are still hoping the service lives on under MySpace. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors A Million People Riding Google Wave. Most Of Them On Their Stomachs. December 7, 2009 at 10:13 pm The first time you go surfing, it's a pretty significant achievement to just stand up on the board and ride a wave. Most people never leave their stomachs, or when they do, they fly face first into the wave. Google Wave, it seems, is not entirely dissimilar. On its Google Wave Blog today, the company announced a very significant milestone for the young service: A million invites have been sent out. The single biggest complaint about Google Wave so far has been the lack of access to it as everyone who wants to see what all the fuss is about. So Google has opened up the floodgates today and apparently let in everyone who previously requested an invite (though they are still requiring the invite request here). But a million invites is hardly a million users, and certainly not a million happy riders. After a huge amount of hype following its unveiling at Google I/O, some amount of backlash for Wave was inevitable. But many Wave users still can't quite figure out what to use the service for. My main problem with it right now is more of a chicken-and-egg one. During my busy days, I never remember to open up Wave, and there is no good notification method that you have new Wave messages, so I skip entire days without visiting. And then when I do, I'm too overwhelmed with what I've missed. And even if there was a good notification technique, that in some ways defeats the point of the service. Ultimately, I think Google Wave is something I'd like to have open all the time, as I see it as a new potential variety of communication for the web. And if I have it open, I don't need another service, like email, to notify me about new messages. But I don't have it open all the time now because usage among people I know is too sporadic. Luckily for the Wave team, they have Google backing them. If Wave were a startup, they'd likely be in some trouble right now trying to figure out how best to position themselves. But with Google's resources, Wave can take its time to find its audience, and most importantly, to let developers build things on top of it. "Although we are opening up access a bit, do remember that Google Wave is still only in its early preview phase," the team notes today for the umpteenth time. A very early preview with a million plus invites sent out; that's a pretty impressive early preview. While Wave finds its way, it has been the source of some great comedy on the web. There have been sites dedicated to pointing out what Google Wave is easier to understand than. And there have been videos using it to reenact scenes from Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting. And also the Declaration of Independence. And then others are using it for the opposite reasons: Like to hunt down killers. [photo: Universal Pictures] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. LaLa Was Bought By Apple For $17 Million, Not $80 Million December 7, 2009 at 9:08 pm Sometimes you have to apply the smell test to what your sources are telling you, and the rumors we're hearing about Apple's purchase of music service LaLa are definitely smelling a little off. $80 million for LaLa? That isn't what we're hearing. LaLa was purchased for $17 million by Apple, according to our sources with indirect knowledge of the deal. And the company supposedly had $14 million in cash in the bank, meaning the actual purchase price was really $3 million. That's in line with recent competitive sales like iLike ($20 million) and iMeem ($1 million). LaLa had plenty of cash in the bank, but they were burning $500k/month, say our sources. There's just no reason Apple would pay $80 million for the company. We also believe that LaLa was acquired mostly for the star engineering team and the awesome recent Google deal more than for the product. iTunes in the cloud isn't something we should hold our breath for. $3 million for top-of Google music results and a top team of engineers makes a lot of sense. $80 million not so much. LaLa has raised $35 million and was valued at $180 million or so in it's last round of funding. The reason for the misreports on the $80 million sale may have to do with those numbers. We've heard that the purchase price was "forty or fifty cents on the dollar" from one source, meaning 40% or 50% of the $35 million in venture capital the company has raised. But a misunderstanding of what that means could easily have people thinking it was 40% or 50% of the last round valuation, which gets you the $80 million number. If we get additional sources on this story either way we'll update. LaLa, which used to love to talk to us, has become scarce when we call or email. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Mozilla's Thunderbird 3 To Take Flight With Faster Search, Tabbed Email And More December 7, 2009 at 7:49 pm Tomorrow, the makers of Firefox will be launching the third version of Thunderbird, its open source and free email application that is produced out of Mozilla Messaging, which is a subsidiary of Mozilla devoted to producing innovation around communication and the internet. Thunderbird 3, which is available in 50 languages and is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, has made more than 2,000 improvements and fixes to the new email client. Thunderbird 3 will be available to the public mid-day tomorrow here. One of the main improvements to Thunderbird 3, says Mozilla Messaging CEO David Ascher, is the client's search capacity. The new search interface contains filtering and timeline tools to try to help users pin-point emails by words, correspondents or attachment types. Thunderbird 3 also includes tabbed email, which lets users view emails and folders in tabs within the client, similar to the way that you manage tabs in Firefox. Tabs are remembered in the client, so you don't have to keep re-saving tabs. Thunderbird has also added a new archive feature that moves email from your inbox into separate archive folder, a sleeker address book, a new setup wizards, and the ability to combine individual mailboxes to manage multiple email accounts in one spot. The email client has been tweaked to integrate more seamlessly with Gmail and Windows and Mac OS X. Ascher tells me that Thunderbird currently has 10 to 15 million users. While this doesn't reach the user base of Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and others, Thunderbird has seen steady growth in a field with formidable competitors. And this version is the most powerful iteration of the email client yet, so I expect Thunderbird to gain a few more fans with this release. We expect for Thunderbird to collaborate with Mozilla's recently launched, open-source, experimental email and communication platform, Raindrop. Ascher tells me that Raindrop is still constantly evolving but it will be interesting to see what two-way interactions the platform will feature and what content it eventually will bring in. Full disclosure: My husband works for the Mozilla Corp. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Assistly Comes Out Of Stealth, Adds Mark Cuban And David Liu As Advisors December 7, 2009 at 6:38 pm We've just gotten our first look at Assistly, a new startup that's looking to provide businesses with a robust platform for engaging customers on everything from Email to Facebook and Twitter. We first caught wind of Assistly back in October when its founding members left AOL in tandem, but until now the company remained firmly in stealth. Today it's launching a new 'sneak preview' version of its site at Assistly.com, and they've given us a handful of screenshots to showcase some of the features we can expect. The company is also announcing that Mark Cuban and David Liu are officially coming on as advisors. CEO Alex Bard says that Assistly looking to capitalize on some key trends: first, that more and more businesses are establishing themselves on the web, and that consumers now have louder voices than ever with their presences on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs which makes customer service more important than ever. Bard says that existing customer service solutions are either old and difficult to use, or are new and easier to manage but lack much depth. Bard says that Assistly is looking to provide a platform that combines the best of both worlds, offering a robust customer service with self-service ease of use. You can see some of the upcoming features, including engaging with a customer on Twitter and managing multiple customer service tickets, in the screenshots below. We still have't gotten a chance to try out Assistly for ourselves, but the team behind it is enough to make us optimistic about its potential. The site was founded by Alex Bard, Gary Benitt, Jeremy Suriel, and Brad Birnbaum, each of whom previously worked together in building customer service-based companies back in the 90's. The first, called eShare, was acquired in 1999; the second, called eAssist Global Solutions, was eventually acquired in 2004 after stumbling through the dot com bubble burst. Following the eAssist acquisition three of the team members left the space to start Goowy, a Flash widget maker that later sold to AOL. Now all four are reuniting as they return to the customer service space. Bard says that Assistly is targeting an early 2010 public launch. Other startups looking to help businesses interact with customers via social media include BuzzGain, PeopleBrowsr, Viralheat, and Scout Lab. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Go FISHn Casts Off As A Fishing Site For The Facebook Age December 7, 2009 at 6:02 pm Ned Desmond has gone fishin' and he wants you to Go FISHn too. Today, Desmond launched a fishing site for the Facebook age. You can sign in with your Facebook ID, share fishing stories and photos with your friends, ask questions to fishing pros and the community, and review all the gear in your tackle box. Go FISHn is an enthusiast site for people who love to fish—and there's an estimated 30 million recreational anglers in the U.S. alone who spend about $45 billion a year on gear, supplies, and trips. "Nobody has done a good job in enthusiast sites," says Desmond, who is the former president of Time Interactive and was once my boss (we launched a magazine together). There is something deeply satisfying about seeing an old boss of mine from my mainstream media days embrace niche media. Go FISHn is the first site from his new company, Go SPORTn, which will take the same model and create communities for different enthusiast groups much in the way magazines like Field & Stream used to do. "I think a mass audience is the ability to address a lot of niches within a category," he says. Hmm, where have I heard that before (cough, nichebusters)? What's even more satisfying is to see him do it so well with a bootstrap budget, five engineers in India, and a few other contractors. The whole site was built on Rails, MediaWiki, and the Sphinx open-source search engine. I'm obviously biased because Desmond is my friend, but judge it for yourself. There are other social networks for fishermen such as Angling Masters, Fishing Files, and the Fishing Network where people can share fish tales and photos. But they seem to be modeled more after MySpace than Facebook. Go FISHn isn't trying to create a new social network. "People fish for the challenge, but also for the companionship," says Desmond. Go FISHn starts out by connecting you to your fishing buddies on Facebook (and, yes, it has a Facebook Fan page as well). Once you join, you can add fishing-related status updates, longer blog-post-length stories, and fishing photos and videos to your Go FISHn data stream and share those with your friends on Go FISHn as well as on Facebook and Twitter. The site is also designed as a social marketing tool for guides, charters, outfitters, lodges, and other small businesses. They can have their own version of fan pages which are more likely to show up on Google than their own Websites, and it gives them an opportunity to connect with potential customers. For instance, there is a Q&A part of the site where anyone can ask or answer questions, with the best answers being voted to the top. Pros can get in front of potential customers by providing the best answers to the fishing questions they are expert in. Another section of the site is the reviews. Anyone can write a review about their favorite piece of gear. These products are linked to affiliate sales via Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's. Underlying the site is a database of about 100,000 fish species, lakes, rivers, fishing gear, guides and outfitters which helps to create a consistent taxonomy throughout the site. So whenever you post a report or ask a question and start to tag it, an auto-complete suggests the names of species, gear, and so on. Anyone later searching for those topics will be able to find your updates. The taxonomy also makes possible an online fishing encyclopedia seeded with licensed content, built on MediaWiki. Desmond thinks the same model can be applied to many other outdoor enthusiast activities such as hunting, gardening, surfing, backpacking, even classic car rebuilding (is that a sport?). His criteria: "There has to be big enthusiasm, lots of small businesses, and a narrative that attaches to it in a daily, ongoing way." But first, he has to prove the model with Go FISHn. The bait has been cast. Will anglers bite? Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Microsoft Looks For Don Dodge Replacement December 7, 2009 at 4:42 pm When Microsoft laid off Microsoft's Director of Business Development Don Dodge last month we called it a huge mistake. He was Microsoft's "ambassador" to startups and largely responsible for the success of the Bizspark program (the Bizspark program gives Microsoft products for free to startups, and also funds a number of tech blogs through sponsored posts). Eleven days after Dodge was let go he was a Google employee. Now Microsoft is looking for his replacement, it seems. From a job listing (we're trying to confirm with Microsoft now that it's authentic): DEVELOPER EVANGELIST(707969 -External) Permanent Overall Scope/Impact Startup partners are a critical element in Microsoft's overall strategy in delivering Microsoft based software solutions to customers and growing platform share and revenue especially in the fastest growing underpenetrated Startup market segment. As related to evangelism, Startup partners needs extend beyond just creating best of breed services and solutions. Customers are demanding an overall approach that embraces creative design, development, delivery and maintenance. The Startup Developer Evangelist needs to understand the Startup partner business dynamics and be keen on how Microsoft can help increase platform share and increase the utilization of Microsoft tools and technologies while improving Startup partner satisfaction with Microsoft. This is an opportunity to innovate by engagement, grow the Startup partner base and directly impact Startup partner satisfaction, platform and tools adoption for Microsoft. Qualifications: To qualify for this position, you must be prepared to demonstrate a passion for technology and previous experience in showing developers ?how to?. You should also possess a current technical background in both Microsoft and competitive platform and tools technologies (eg Windows 7, Azure, Silverlight, IE8, WPF, Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008, Sharepoint 2010, ASP.NET and JAVA, Flex/AIR, LAMP, MySQL, PHP). You should also have an extremely good grasp of the Startup partner business practices, exceptional skills creating Location: Boston, MA Reference: JS707969 Company: Microsoft Corporation Contact: Microsoft Corporation Posted Date: 12/7/2009 2:32:15 AM This is very nearly an exact description of Dodge's job, although it may be a more junior role. Did Microsoft let Dodge go to hire someone younger and cheaper? Seems like a penny wise and pound foolish decision to me. Startups loved Dodge. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Google Analytics Gets An Upgrade With Annotations, New API And More December 7, 2009 at 4:38 pm With all of the news surrounding Google's newest additions to its search technology, Google's latest upgrade to Google Analytics has been overshadowed. Analytics is the search giant's free software product that allows website owners and publishers to get detailed statistics about the number, whereabouts and search behavior of their visitors (and much more). Today, the product is being upgraded to become even more customizable. The most noteworthy new feature is the ability to leave annotations or notes within in analytics charts, helping to explain sudden spikes or drops in traffic. Annotations lets analytics users to leave shared or private notes right on the over-time graph in an effort to let users bring intelligence to data. The beauty of Google Analytics is that it is customizable to collect the specific data that is important to a user or business. While users have been able to define multiple custom variables when it comes to receiving data (for example, visitors, page views), users can now see these variable across all data in their reports. Previously, you'd have a separate report for custom variables, but with this feature, users can create an advanced segmentation of data and see it across all reports. Google also made it easier for users to track data across multiple subdomains, mobile sites and more with a new tracking code setup wizard. The new technology will automatically generate the appropriate code for specialized tracking without the user having to input it manually. Finally, Google is going to be making a significant upgrade to its Analytics API, which launched in public beta earlier this year, to include advanced segmentation and new data metrics features that were announced in October. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Video: Google Goggles Live In Action December 7, 2009 at 3:30 pm It's one thing for Google to talk about how cool its new Goggles service is, and to show it off in staged demo videos — it's another to see it in action. Our own Jason Kincaid was at Google's Search Event in Mountain View today and got a chance to get a real world demo of Google Goggles. The service, which is currently an application for Android, is impressive. Watch below: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Apple Bans Another Developer, 1000+ Apps Pulled December 7, 2009 at 3:00 pm As the old mantra goes, "Cheaters never prosper". In this digital age, it may be time to revise that saying. Granted a veil of anonymity by the Internet, cheaters surely prosper from their cheating; it's just that when they get caught, they go down hard. Alas, "Cheaters may temporarily prosper – but if they get caught, they're totally boned" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Such was the case earlier today, when the development company behind over 1,000 iPhone applications was busted scamming the review system. In a flash, the developer — and all one thousand of their applications — have been pulled from the store. Read the rest of this post at MobileCrunch >> Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Online Sample Sale Site Ideeli Raises A Whopping $20 Million December 7, 2009 at 2:56 pm We've written about the rapid growth of online sample sales; with the latest news coming from the rumored acquisition of European sample sale site Vente-Privee by Amazon for an estimated $3.01 billion . Today, online shopping site Ideeli, which was founded in 2007, has raised $20 million in funding, according to an SEC filing. We've contacted the company for further comment. Prior to this round of funding, Ideeli raised $3.8 million from Kodiak Venture Partners. The amount raised isn't surprising considering that similar startups in the online sample sales space like Gilt Groupe, and Hautelook are all raising huge amounts of money, growing their user base at a rapid pace and turning a strong profit. Gilt recently raised an estimated $40 million in funding in July, which valued the company at $400 million. VC firm Kleiner Perkins recently invested in One Kings Lane, an online sample sale site for home decor and accessories, which we wrote about here. The concept has even attracted retail giants like Saks and Neiman Marcus, which are now jumping on the bandwagon to offer their own private sales. The basic idea behind the online sample sale model is this: big designers, such as Marc Jacobs or Versace, place excess inventory on a sale site at 50 to 70 percent discounts over a several day period. The sales are private, available only to members, with upcoming sales from brands announced via emails. Products include clothing for men, women and children as well as jewelry, handbags and home accessories. You can get invites from other members or request invites via the site. A few months ago, I spoke with Ideeli's CEO Paul Hurley, who revealed that the site just hit one million members and is set to do $50 million in revenue this year. Hurley expects to do $175 million in revenue next year. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Google Gets Its First Taste Of Facebook's Realtime Stream December 7, 2009 at 2:39 pm Google's new realtime search wouldn't be complete without Facebook updates. At the tail-end of today's Google search event Marissa Mayer announced that Google will start to include realtime results from Facebook as well as MySpace. While Twitter and MySpace is making available everybody's updates (or at least the public ones), Google right now will only show updates from public Facebook pages, which are generally fan pages. "Facebook will be providing us with a feed of updates from public profile pages, also known as Facebook pages," says Mayer. Facebook is still holding back publicly-designated updates from individuals (those visible to "everyone"). These individual updates make up the widest and most valuable part of Facebook's stream. Mayer would not discuss the financial terms of the deals with Facebook (or with Twitter or MySpace). But it is likely that Google is paying a hefty fee for this data. The amount it is paying probably depends on whether it is just ingesting the data or providing its realtime index of these status updates back to the underlying services. Facebook however is already indexing all Facebook status updates on its own, so it is not clear that it would want or need Google's indexed data, and may be holding out for a more lucrative offer for the full fed of public updates. So today's announcement may be just a first step for Facebook, with that more valuable set of updates open to future negotiations. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Google Fully Embraces Realtime In Results. Twitter, MySpace, And Facebook All On Board. December 7, 2009 at 2:05 pm Today, at its Search Event in Mountain View, Google Fellow Amit Singhal took the stage to announce a big new feature for the search giant: Realtime. "It's Google's relevance technology meeting the realtime web," is how Singhal described it. As we've learned over the past several months with Twitter Search, relevancy is perhaps the key to making realtime web search a pillar of the web. Google seems to believe it has cracked the code for this, and has been internally testing it for a while now. But starting today it's going live for everyone. Singhal showed off the new feature by doing a query for "Obama." The results page shows results coming in in realtime. And yes, it works with Twitter. For example, Google's Matt Cutts tweeted something from the audience, and in popped in the results immediately. This is the first time any search engine has integrated realtime results into a standard page, Google says. Obviously, this is huge. Google will offer realtime trends (it will be interesting to see how these compare to Twitter trends), and Trends is officially leaving Google Labs today. This new realtime search will work on both Android devices and iPhones immediately. Google says there are over a billion realtime documents a day that it will be looking at. This includes tweets, blog posts, and also information from sources like MySpace and yes, Facebook. "The importance of relevance has gone through the roof as the amount of information out there is growing. Relevance has become the critical factor," Singhal noted. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Google Rethinks Searching On The Go December 7, 2009 at 2:02 pm At Google's news event today, the search giant revealed a multitude of new technologies and strategies they are exploring to ramp up search. Google's emphasized the significance of mobile search within its strategy, unveiling a multitude of new features that help users search on the go. The three main areas that Google's mobile strategy is focused on are Voice, Location, and Sight. Voice Google's VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra revealed that Google's mobile app will be enhanced to take in-depth search queries by voice and then show more accurate results. And Google is launching support for additional languages besides English, including Mandarin and Japanese. The other component to this technology is the ability to translate voice technologies on the go. Location Gundotra said today that location will be "a first class component of all the products" Google develops. Google.com's new mobile homepage will now include customized search suggestions based on location. You'll also be able to incorporate location with product search, will the new mobile technology providing inventory feeds of local stores. So if you do a search for a Canon camera, you'll get results if the stores that have the camera in stock closest to your current location. A "Near Me Now" feature on the Google Mobile homepage will show you nearby restaurants, coffee shops, Bars, ATMS, similar to what Yelp offers users with its mobile applications. And Google's new version of Mobile Maps for Android will include this new technology. Sight Google demoed a brand new product set to launch in Google Labs: Google Goggles, which is an attempt at visual search via mobile phones. The example that Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra showed on stage involved taking a picture of a particular bottle of wine. When he ran it through Google Goggles, the result showed that the particular bottle has a hint of apricots. You also be able to use Goggles to look up things such as CD covers and bar codes (this is likely similar to the popular Android app ShopSavvy). For text, Google Goggles uses optical character recognition (OCR) to try and read things like labels to aid the search. Real-Time Search This morning, Google launched its real-time search offering,that will work on both Android devices and iPhones immediately. Google says there are over a billion realtime documents a day that it will be looking at. This includes tweets, blog posts, and also information from sources like MySpace and Facebook. Honestly, the push towards location-based search is not surprising at all, but it should be interesting to see if the new technology encroaches upon a space where Yelp has dominated. And as we wrote earlier today, Goggles takes a huge leap forward in the field of visual search. Of course, rounding out Google's offerings with real-time technology makes its mobile product significantly more powerful. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. CrunchGear in China: The Factory December 7, 2009 at 2:00 pm The driver pulled up to a small office complex in the heart of the city and beckoned us into the back of his scuffed white van. The surface of the vehicle was caked in dust and the seats, clad in new blue velvet, were sized for someone much smaller. I curled up in the back and we were off into the city, cars coming at all sides and bikes darting out in front of the unflappable driver, his smile never wavering as we drove. I was on my way to a factory outside of Shenzhen, a city of 14 million people mostly dedicated to the manufacture of the things we buy. If it beeps, makes phone calls, or increasingly, if you can wear it, it's probably come from out here. We roll through the city to the outskirts and then onto a wide five-lane highway that rolls up through the smog, past rocks and hills that look like a stage set for a Kung Fu fable. This is modern China, a place of conflicting images and a world of untrammeled growth. Search By Sight With Google Goggles December 7, 2009 at 1:46 pm Today, at their Search Event in Mountain View, Google demoed a brand new product set to launch in Google Labs: Google Goggles. Humorous name aside, the product looks to be a huge leap forward in the field of visual search — by which I mean, you point a camera at something and Google figures out what it is. The example that Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra showed on stage involved taking a picture of a particular bottle of wine. When he ran it through Google Goggles, the result showed that the particular bottle has a hint of apricots. You also be able to use Goggles to look up things such as CD covers and bar codes (this is likely similar to the popular Android app ShopSavvy). For text, Google Goggles uses optical character recognition (OCR) to try and read things like labels to aid the search. It seems as if this new functionality, which should be live in Google Labs soon, will be destined for Android phones at least at first. More to come. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Guest Post: App Developers, Get Ready For The Post-Christmas Rush December 7, 2009 at 1:45 pm Consumer spending during the holiday retail season, beginning with Black Friday, is among the most important predictors of U.S. economic health. Since the late 90s, tracking online sales of websites like amazon.com on the first Monday after Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday, has become a second important barometer. The National Retail Federation, the world's leading retail trade group, extrapolated that total spending for this year's Black Friday "weekend," Thursday-to-Sunday, was up 0.5% from a year ago. Additionally, Lazard Capital reported Cyber Monday sales were up strongly over last year, by 35%. MySpace To Push Updates To Google In Realtime December 7, 2009 at 1:11 pm "Realtime" is the hot buzzword right now, and today Google and MySpace are set to further it along with a new agreement that will see Google serve up search results from MySpace in realtime. What these means is that all publically available data that's on MySpace will be available to Google within seconds, we've learned. This will include not only status updates, but also elements like pictures and blog posts as well, apparently. This announcement is expected to be made at Google's Search event today. You can find our live notes for that here. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Live From The Google Search Event December 7, 2009 at 12:48 pm I'm here at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA where Google is holding an event to showcase its upcoming search technologies. Google hasn't said much about what we'll be hearing about today, but it's clear they've got some big things planned — they've decked out the museum with colorful Google logos, have set up some search kiosks just outside the main stage, and are projecting recent search queries on giant screens set up throughout the main room. The room is filled with press, and there are a few other notable faces in the crowd. MySpace's Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn just walked in. There are also some interesting desks laid out in front of the auditorium. These clearly have something to do with the technology we're learning about today, but Google employees aren't talking. I've included some photos of them below. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Hunch Gets A New Board Member: Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales December 7, 2009 at 12:47 pm Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is joining decision-making engine Hunch's board of directors and will serve as an advisor to the startup. Hunch was recently launched by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake as a platform to help users make decisions spanning a wide array of topics. To help users make their decisions, Hunch presents them with a brief series of questions that have been submitted by other members, using their responses to help them make their ultimate decision. Wales joining the board makes sense considering that Hunch combines the crowd-sourced nature of Wikipedia with a Q&A site. On his blog, Wales wrote that Hunch.com's "combination of community-sourced content and algorithmically-driven smarts is forging a promising path towards this potential future." Since Hunch's launch in June, Hunch's users have created more than 5,500 decisions, added more than 30,000 follow-up questions to those decisions, and contributed more than 50,000 decision outcomes. Users have answered more than 28 million THAY ("Teach Hunch About You") questions and have 'played' more than 6 million decisions on Hunch Fake, who worked on Yahoo Answers before leaving Yahoo, recently told us that "Yahoo Answers is not the answer," saying that Hunch goes further than most Q&A sites with its algorithms and technology. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Alicia Keys Streams New Album On Facebook December 7, 2009 at 12:40 pm Alicia Keys fans will have another reason to compulsively check her Facebook fan page today: Keys is releasing her new album The Element of Freedom exclusively through the world's largest social network.  Fans will be able to tune in to her Facebook Fan page beginning today, where they'll be able to stream the album free of charge (though they won't be able to download digitial copies).  The album's "real" release date isn't until December 15.  This marks the first time a world-famous artist has debuted their album through the site. Now, it isn't unheard of for artists to debut albums and songs through the web, but this has long been an area dominated by MySpace.  MySpace still sees its share of exclusives, but in the last few months Facebook has been getting an increasing amount of attention from artists.  We've recently seen Chamillionaire and Sharkira release their new music videos exclusively though Ustream/Facebook, and there have been a number of big-name concerts streamed through the site as well. The company powering the launch is called Involver, which has built out a strong selection of widgets and applications that brands can use to help engage users on Facebook.  Involver has powered the Facebook fan pages of over 20,000 companies, including big names like Nike, TIME, Microsoft, Guitar Center, and Snapple (you can see more of their clients here. The album stream is powered by a new Involver app called Music for Pages. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. LiveFyre Wants To Ignite Realtime Intelligent Conversations December 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm People often attempt to have conversations with others on Twitter, but if it goes more than a few tweets deep, it's a mess. FriendFeed was a better haven for conversations, but those were often just based on tweets moved over to a small community — a community which is quickly fading. A new service launching in beta today, LiveFyre, is focused on reworking how we have conversations on the web. "What doesn't exist is a place to have intelligent, face-paced, realtime conversations," LiveFyre CEO Jordan Kretchmer tells us. He notes that while users have been trying to do this on Twitter and other services, the conversations often lack the content needed to be cohesive. That's why a central part of LiveFrye is content. When you find a story on the web, you can share the link in LiveFyre, thus starting a "fyre" (a conversation thread) about that topic. Once a fyre is started, things get interesting. Any site user can join in to share their opinion on the subject. These comments come in in realtime, maintaining a flow. But one issue with that is often people will get into side conversations, and one of LiveFyre's key features is a way to easily split those off into what are called "Breakouts." Just as the name indicates, these are side conversations that can also be had in realtime with other members participating in the main fyre, but may want to veer off course a bit. The UI for this is intuitive as in the main fyre, there is a notice to all participants that a breakout is happening, which they can then see in a column ot the right of the main stream. Fyres also feature live-threading to keep things in order. And when replies come in specifically to something you said (using the same @reply syntax that Twitter uses), those are highlighted to make it very clear that someone is talking to you. You will also get a notification at the top of the fyre showing you have a message directed specifically at you. Another nice feature is that if someone shares another link within a fyre, LiveFyre will automatically detect it and put it in a "Fyre Links" area in the left side column. This way the links people are refering to are visible for all to look at at any time even as the main fyre stream keeps moving. Taking a step back, the main area of LiveFyre is the key to discovering what to talk about on the site. The main screen consists of the latest "Breaking Fyres" at any given moment. These items, stacked on top of one another, show the headline, a thumbnail for a story, tags, and how many people are in the fyre talking about it. A big component of the site is that everything is color-coordinated to let you know how "hot" a particular fyre is. The more red it burns, the hotter it is. "Hotness" is determined by active participation in a fyre. And actually, there is a timer on each fyre, so if the conversation dies down, eventually, that fyre will burn out and will no longer be featured prominently. It is possible to reignite fyres though if people start talking about it again. Another key component of the site is that not everyone can start a fyre. In order to begin a conversation about something, you must have the "Fyre Starter" badge, which not everyone will have at first. The idea here is to make sure the quality of conversations remains high. And users who do things such as start high quality fyres will be rewarded at various levels with other kinds of badges. While LiveFyre's focus is taking the conversation outside of places like Twitter, Kretchmer acknowledges that was very much the driving force behind the site initially — to see what people were talking about on Twitter, and bringing those conversations over to LiveFyre. And while the service may be more content-centric now, it's still very much about using Twitter and Facebook. You can sign up with your Twitter credentials to set up an account, and there is also Facebook Connect integration. Obviously, both of these services will be vital for LiveFyre spreading the word about conversations being had on their service. Another company interested in realtime conversations, Lissn, launched at TechCrunch50 this year. But LiveFyre COO Henry Arlander believes their product is almost the opposite of that because Lissn was more about passive conversations whereas LiveFrye is very active. So what's the business model behind all of this? Well LiveFyre, like many startups, have lofty plans for the future (think conversations about products), but they're actually launching with a revenue model in place as well. Alongside today's beta launch, the company has struck a deal with MINI Cooper to sponsor the site for the first few days. After that, they have other brands lined up as well, we're told. That's just a basic model, but LiveFyre promises some other interesting things that they're not quite ready to talk about yet. Also interesting are the plans they have to work with communities that provide the content for their conversations, such as blogs, to ensure they're not simply moving the emphasis away from those sites. But again, that's for a later time. For the beta launch, LiveFyre is giving 200 TechCrunch readers access to Fyre Starter badges (so you can start fyres). Simply send you email address to this email address to get your invite code. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. About @EricSchmidt: Google CEO Gets A Better Twitter Name December 7, 2009 at 11:54 am Last night, we wrote about Google CEO Eric Schmidt joining Twitter. Unfortunately, he chose a truly awful name for his account, @eschmidt0. We wondered why he didn't pull some strings to get @ericschmidt, an account which was under suspension and likely available. Well voila! Today he has done just that. Eric Schmidt is now @ericschmidt. And yes, Twitter has finally verified the account. He's gone from about 70 followers when we posted last night to over 5,000 already. We'll take full credit for that — all we ask for in return is that he retweets us more than he does his other friends, like Heidi Montag. So what will become of eschmidt0? Apparently someone else already has it. Listed under the name "Just Me" they already have 44 followers (and rising fast). Their first tweet is "Hi." We better update that story from last night. Update: Google's Matt Cutts tweets that eschmidt0 now belongs to "Felipe Barreto," perhaps that's the name he entered before "Just Me." Maybe he's trying to ride the Eric Schmidt wave. And it looks like it's working. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Report: Bing Searchers Still More Click-Happy Than Google Searchers When It Comes To Ads December 7, 2009 at 11:16 am Are people who arrive at a Website through an organic search on Bing more click-happy than those who come from Google? Back in July, we reported some numbers from search-advertising network Chitika which showed that people from Bing clicked on ads about 50 percent more than people from Google. Chitika just ran the numbers again, and the clickthrough rate (CTR) from Bing searchers is now about 75 percent higher. The actual CTR for Bing is 1.74 percent versus 0.98 percent for Google, compared to a 1.50 percent CTR in the summer.  Google's CTR is almost the same.  Chitika is basing these numbers on 134 million ad impressions across 80,000 sites, so it is a snapshot.  It is measuring the proensity for people to click on an ad at asite after arriving there from a search engine via an organic search (i.e., not a paid search ad). While Bing's associated CTR went up, it's actual share of search traffic went down to 5.75 percent from 8 percent last time.  So the increase in the CTR could be skewed by its relatively small market share.  Ask and AOL, which both represent even smaller shares of traffic to Chitika's network, also have higher CTRs than even Bing, with AOL searchers clicking on ads at a 2.5 percent rate. Is a group's propensity to click on ads inversely related to its tech savvyness?  You be the judge. Search Engine Ad Clicks Impressions Ad CTR % of Search CTR Compared to Google AOL 42,597 1,706,858 2.50% 1.27% 253.56% Ask 34,437 1,958,490 1.76% 1.45% 178.65% Bing 134,536 7,741,724 1.74% 5.75% 176.57% Google 1,115,452 113,332,938 0.98% 84.13% 100.00% Yahoo! 136,506 9,972,035 1.37% 7.40% 139.08% Total Search 1,463,528 134,712,045 1.09% CrunchBase Information Bing Google Chitika Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. CrunchGear's Uberprize: A SMART Board 685ix Interactive White Board December 7, 2009 at 10:58 am This week we're going to go a little crazy. We'll have daily giveaways but we're going to offer you the chance to totally go nuts and win a SMART Board 685ix short throw magical whiteboard with installation included. What's that you say? What will I do with a whiteboard? Good question! Mark the Spot: Tell AT&T Where the iPhone Sucks December 7, 2009 at 10:05 am I recently noticed that almost all of my calls in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, hardly a data hotspot, drop at least once. Every single one. Now I know what people mean when they say AT&T sucks. Well now there is an electronic version of that crosswalk button for me to push whenever my signal degrades. This app, free in the App Store lets you pinpoint your location when the call was dropped. Expect a good constellation of points around my house. Lazyfeed's New Realtime Interface Tips Into Information Overload December 7, 2009 at 9:58 am Today, Lazyfeed, a realtime interest feed reader which launched at our first Realtime Crunchup, is changing its look. Instead of a Google Reader-style interface with a menu of different feeds in the left-hand pane and the actual feed taking up most of the screen, it is taking more of a tile approach. Your screen fills up with tiles as you add interests you want to keep track of (such as "Web," "iPhone," "Google," "movies," "wine,") and each of those tiles keeps constantly updating in realtime as new stories about those topics appear on blogs and news sites across the Web. Lazyfeed is trying to solve the problem of how to present realtime information in the most digestible way. It goes out, scours more than one million blogs and does a pretty good job of matching stories to your stated interests, so it helps you discover new stories you might not have otherwise found. But with the new interface, which should be live later today, you quickly descend into information overload. With just a dozen topics, you end up with a dozen tiles constantly updating (founder Ethan Gahng calls it "Lazyfeed Squared"). You are supposed to watch the news as it unfolds. There is something pure about this approach which reminds me of how you can watch a topic unfold on realtime search engine Collecta, which also presents information in a realtime stream. But one realtime stream is hard enough to keep up with at one time. Twelve or more just starts to hurt your brain. Lazyfeed makes it easy to add topics and tries to guess what topics you are interested in based on your current feeds. If you want to dive into a topic, you click on one of the tiles, and then you get a more traditional feed view in lightbox window. It then shows the most recent stories about that topic. You can click again to read the full post or excerpt and can share any post via Twitter, Facebook, or email. By using the most recent stories as its filter, Lazyfeed does a good job at capturing news as it breaks, but that is not all that it captures. And here is where Lazyfeed runs into another potential problem. The blogosphere is by its nature a conversational media. People are writing blog posts right now about yesterday's news, and that tends to overcrowd the actual new information. So you get a third-day story on Google personalizing search results because some random blogger in Lazyfeed's index decided to write about it three minutes ago. Lazyfeed doesn't seem to rank stories by authority, so you get a lot of garbage. I don't want to harsh too much on Lazyfeed because at least it is experimenting with ways to make feed reading relevant again by injecting more of a realtime flow into the experience. It should be applauded for that and for trying to come up with new visual metaphors for consuming information. But it's only solved half the problem. The harder part is coming up with a filter for realtime information that goes beyond most-recent-first. I want my feeds to be comprehensive, authoritative, and garbage-free. It's a tall order that nobody's yet delivered, but I'm hopeful that startups like Lazyfeed will help us find our way. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Youtego Launches Tool For Self-Visualization December 7, 2009 at 9:10 am Launching today, Youtego is a new tool for self-visualization on the net. The company's goal is to help bring the concept of self-visualization to the web, so that you can project a visual image of yourself—what you believe, feel, know, have to teach or are capable of doing. Self-visualization is the term that Youtego uses to explain the process of associating pictures with what your self-image. The process of self-visualization in Youtego is a combination of semantics (words and phrases) and its visual representation (pictures and photos), about yourself. In the end, you get the combination or matrix of visual objects that you personally define and visualize. As a result, you start matching with people by elements, which are called Tegos, that you define. Once you sign up for an account, you start by creating a 'Tegoset'. For instance, I made a Tegoset showing my computers because I'm really into computers. With a Tegoset you have the ability to explain what you like and enjoy without to having to write anything — it's all done through pictures. You fill your 'Tegoset' with any visualized images that you think relate to the Tegoset and see who else matches those in the site. After you create your 'Tegoset', you create individual 'tegos'. You also have the option of creating a story, that goes along with your Tegoset and tego. Once you have the words and pictures that you define, Youtego then connects photos from Flickr, Picasa, and Google Images. From there, you can share the tegos with the rest of the world. A neat feature of Youtego is the ability to take pictures of the Tegos, and turn them into videos with a combination of music — It reminds me a lot of Animoto, actually. Youtego is a similar service to iMindi, a TechCrunch50 finalist from 2008. You might also remember iMindi as the startup that got ripped up by TechCrunch50 panel expert Mark Cuban as the "biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever heard in my life." Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Zemanta Opens Up Recommendation Engine For Bloggers December 7, 2009 at 8:22 am Zemanta, a service that helps bloggers find related content as they write, launches new version of its service later today. As well as a general makeover designed to makes its widget lighter and faster, the big change is that Zemanta is opening up its recommendation engine to no longer just include so-called 'professional media' but also content from its community of users. This, says the company, will create a level playing field, giving community content the same chance of being featured as more established sources as long as it's deemed relevant. However, it's not yet clear if all community content will make it into Zemanta's index. For those that do, however, being regularly featured as a 'related content' source could drive significant traffic for a small blog, and presumably that's Zemanta's gamble. While it risks diluting the quality of those links, it gives joe-blogger another reason to keep using the service. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors A New Virtual London Arrives Slowly, Like The Traffic December 7, 2009 at 8:14 am Twinity, the virtual world that mirrors the real world, has finally launched a beta of virtual London. And if mirroring the real world includes replicating London's reputation for delayed construction works, then Metaversum, the company behind Twinity, is doing just fine. The virtual world, which distinguishes itself from the likes of Second Life by building exact replicas of well known cities, launched back in 2006 and while London was always planned to follow Berlin and Singapore, it feels like it's been a long time coming. And tough luck if you are on a Mac – the 3D browser only supports Windows XP and Vista. Even now, virtual London is incomplete. Initially, users are only able to visit London's famous Soho district, "stretching virtually from Oxford Street down to Trafalgar Square including the world-famous Piccadilly Circus and China Town." However, Oxford Street in particular is at the heart of London's shopping region and the home to many famous brands. And that's probably the point. Virtual worlds are all about business and Twinity is no exception. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Qype Makes Europe Tough For Yelp, Reveals Traffic And Social Plans December 7, 2009 at 7:49 am Last week I met with Stephan Uhrenbacher, the founder and chairman of Qype, the European startup which competes most directly with Yelp in local reviews and listings. He revealed to me some exclusive information about where Qype is now. In Jan 2009 Qype had 8m uniques across Europe. As with Yelp, Qype members evaluate businesses, places or services such as bars, restaurants, you name it. Today it has 17.7m uniques and the split is now: 5 million in germany, 4 million in the UK and 4 million in France. Spain is on 1m uniques. It now has reviews of 450,000 businesses in Europe from over 50,000 cities. Currently Qype has more than 10,000 businesses each month that sign up across whole network. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Can OpenID Be Commercialized? Investors Bet $3.25 Million On JanRain December 7, 2009 at 6:30 am JanRain has always been on the forefront evangelizing OpenID, the decentralized authentication method for the new Web, as a founding member of the OpenID Foundation. But the company is not a non-profit, and aims to turn the deployment of online identification technology in enterprise environments into a viable business. JanRain just got a vote of confidence from three U.S.-based venture capital firms: we've learned that the startup has recently raised a $3.25 million Series A round of financing led by DFJ Frontier with participation from RPM Ventures and Anthem Venture Partners. JanRain's flagship product is RPX, an SaaS platform for on-site acceptance of OpenID accounts for registrations and other activities, which as you may know can just as well be your MySpaceID, Windows Live ID or your regular Facebook, Google, Yahoo! account. It's worth noting that RPX is a solution that works both ways, as it also enables users to publish their activities on client's websites to multiple social networks. According to JanRain, its solution is already being used on more than 170,000 websites today, including those of Sears, Kmart, FOX News, Scout24, Universal Music Group and EMI Music. The software comes in three flavors: a free version that supports up to 6 interface providers and includes basic profile data, and two professional versions, the cheapest one starting at $100 a year. There's a clean overview of available plans and corresponding pricing on the RPX product website. JanRain is really one of the only horses in this race, but the adoption of OpenID hasn't exactly been stellar so far. Investors are now betting millions on the assumption that the Silicon Valley, founded in 2005, has what it takes to effectively mass market and sell authentication systems to website publishers based on OpenID and other online identity technologies. Would you? Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Google's Busy Week December 7, 2009 at 5:34 am I thought December was supposed to be a quiet month, where people go on vacation, and companies don't launch new things. I was wrong. This week is shaping up to be a very busy one for Google as they could have as many as three substantial launches in three days. Monday: Tomorrow morning, the company is holding an event in Mountain View, CA to talk about the evolution of its search product over the years. That may sound ho-hum, but they are also promising to introduce a "few new features that we hope will change the way people search in the future." Presenting will be no less than Google VP of Search Products and User Experience, Marissa Mayer, Google Fellow, Amit Singhal, and Google VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra. All heavy hitters. Is this Google's answer to the Bing event last week, where they showed off the impressive looking new Bing Maps beta product? You can bet that whatever they unveil, it won't involve Silverlight. And I wouldn't bet against it involving Twitter in some way, just like Microsoft's announcements did. Tuesday: This is far from certain, but word is that Tuesday could be the day Chrome for Mac beta finally gets released. We know the launch is imminent, as the beta version is now complete and the team has moved on to getting the left-out features working. But there is one bug that might hold up the launch (it popped up late after all the beta blocker bugs were previously eliminated). It's definitely worth noting that on the Chromium Development Calendar, December 8 (this Tuesday) is the date listed for "4.0 Beta to Beta Channel." Chrome 4.0 is already in beta testing for Windows, and before that launched in early November, the calendar featured the same message. No word on the Linux build, but that could certainly go beta on Tuesday as well. Also worth noting is that 4.0 is scheduled to go "stable" on January 12, so that may be the Chrome 4.0 official launch (at least for Windows). Wednesday: This is the day that Google will officially launch Chrome Extensions, is the latest thing we're hearing. We noted over the weekend that at some point this week (and probably mid-week) this would happen, and it looks like Wednesday (and possibly Wednesday evening) is the day. The one-two punch of launching Chrome for Mac beta and then having Chrome Extensions would be nice, except for the fact that Chrome for Mac beta won't support them right away. But the latest builds of Chromium do, so everyone will be able to try out the new extensions at launch. The Rest: So that's the first three days of the week with possible things on each day. And if you count Sunday as the start of the week, I guess you could throw in Google CEO Eric Schmidt finally joining Twitter as another event. Is Google going to give us a breather on Thursday and Friday? Who knows, but at this rate they'll probably announce that they are dropping all support for IE on Christmas. [photo: flickr/bramus] Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Clear2Pay Secures $74 million Lead By Aquiline December 7, 2009 at 5:05 am Pretty big capital raise today. Clear2Pay, an electronic payments company, has secured $74 million (€50 million) to fund its next stage of growth and potential strategic acquisitions. The investment was lead by the New-York based Aquiline Capital Partners and previous investors. Clear2Pay, which is profitable, specialises in secure electronic payments and disrupts the existing legacy payment silos in banks. This investment is taking place in the context of the sale of all shares held by Belgium VC Gimv to Aquiline. The sale has a positive impact of €2.2 million (EUR 0.10 per share) on Gimv's last published equity value at 30 September 2009. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Google's Coolest 20% Project: Liquid Galaxy December 7, 2009 at 4:57 am At Google I/O this year, one demo booth stood out above all others: The Holodeck. It was basically eight giant, long screens arranged in a circle that displayed Google Street View imagery. When you stepped the contraption, it was a bit like zooming around outside. Today, Google has taken the time to explain the project a bit, which it now calls "Liquid Galaxy." Apparently, the reason for the name change is that the booth now displays much more than just Street View. Google has made a modified Google Earth client so that you can go anywhere in the world in the device now. And you can even go to the Moon and Mars with it. "It felt more like a ride than a computer program, something between an observation-deck and a glass-walled spaceship. As a result of this totally seamless, immersive experience, we decided to name it the Liquid Galaxy," Google writes. While the company notes that this is still very much a 20% project for them, they are "working hard to improve it." Hopefully that means two things: 1) Turning it into a Star Trek-style Holodeck. 2) Figuring out how to make it less than 10,000 degrees inside (thanks to all the screen heat). Below, watch the video we took of the thing from Google I/O this year. Google notes that it's currently touring around the world at various tech conferences. And they also apparently have a few on their campuses. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Google CEO Eric Schmidt Joins Twitter (With An Awful Name) December 7, 2009 at 1:49 am Back in March, Google CEO Eric Schmidt caused a little controversy when he was quoted as thinking of Twitter (and the other micro-messaging services like it) as a "sort of poor man's email systems." He later clarified his remarks a bit. Tonight, he has joined the service. Current Googlers such as Hunter Walk (YouTube) and former Googlers such as Chris Sacca welcomed Schmidt to the service tonight, pointing to his account, eschmidt0. Yes, you'd think he could have gotten a better name (for example, ericschmidt is currently suspended, and presumably availble), but maybe he's continuing Google's love affair with 1s and 0s. So what was Schmidt's first tweet? Like any good Twitter user, he took some time for self-promotion: CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria on Nov 29th, starts around minute 17; Fareed is a very good interviewer http://bit.ly/6GwGjn His second tweet? Another self-promotional one: WSJ op-ed on newpapers and online news; thanks to the WSJ for publishing ! http://bit.ly/895j8L Yeah, he's going to fit right in here. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors