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| | AIR For Android, And Adobe's Plan To Deliver Apps Across All Mobile Devices
February 14, 2010 at 11:55 PM | |
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The bane of all mobile app developers is the need to rewrite the same app over and over again for different devices: the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, Nokia, Windows Mobile. Adobe is positioning its Flash platform (which includes the Flash player, AIR, developer tools, and media servers) as the write-once, deploy-anywhere solution for both the mobile Web and apps. Today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, it will announce plans to bring Adobe AIR to mobile devices, starting with Android and Blackberry phones. AIR is currently used to create desktop applications, but it will soon be used to create Android and Blackberry apps as well. These mobile AIR apps will be able store data locally on the phone, access other data on the phones such as photos, and be distributed as regular apps in the Android and Blackberry app stores. Not only that, but the same apps created with Flash developer tools will be exportable as iPhone apps. Adobe wants developers to create their apps using its developer tools and then output them as AIR apps for Android and Blackberry phones, native iPhone apps, or Flash apps on the Web. With the upcoming Flash 10.1 player—which Adobe is publicly saying will come out in the first half of the year via an over-the-air update, and privately telling developers to expect by the end of April—it will extend the Flash runtime to mobile browsers. The Flash 10.1 player will run consistently across both the desktop and many mobile browsers (except the iPhone). No more Flash Lite (except for Windows Mobile, which initially won't support Flash 10.1 but is working on a mobile browser plug-in). Flash 10.1 will be great for mobile video. Brightcove, for instance, is announcing support of Flash 10.1 in its video players, which makes possible all sorts of custom video player skins, advertising, analytics, and other features such as share buttons for Facebook and Twitter. (See the video below to see how Flash 10.1 will look in a Brightcove player on an Android phone). 
Of course, the face-off with Apple continues over Flash on the iPhone, even though last December, 7 million iPhone users attempted to download the Flash player from adobe.com through their mobile browsers, up from 3 million requests in July, 2009. Apple might eventually have to cave if Flash becomes a standard feature of all other smartphones. Adobe execs cite numbers by Strategy Analytics which estimate more than half of all smartphones will support Flash by 2012 (click chart at right to enlarge). Flash in mobile browsers seems like an inevitability. But whether apps built for Flash will be able to compete as standalone mobile apps outside the browser is still up in the AIR.      
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| | Photoshop App Tops 6 Million Downloads On The iPhone
February 14, 2010 at 11:54 PM | |
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Adobe might still be having trouble getting Apple to accept Flash on the iPhone, but another one of its products is going gangbusters. Photoshop.com Mobile (iTunes link) has been downloaded more than 6 million times since it was released last October and is the second most popular free photography app in the App Store. The app lets you share and edit up to 2 gigabytes of pictures stored on Photoshop.com. It allows you to do basic photo editing on your iPhone, including cropping, rotating, filters, effects, and borders. Both photos and videos taken on your iPhone can be uploaded to Photoshop.com and viewed through the app. Photo sand videos can be shared via emailed links. The Photoshop app is also available on Android and Windows mobile.      
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| | TechCrunch State Of The Union, Belated Edition
February 14, 2010 at 9:51 PM | |
| |  One thing we love around here at TechCrunch is data. And since we're busy looking up our own traffic stats for 2009, we thought we might as well share those stats with everyone.
Total unique visitors across all TechCrunch sites in 2009, according to Google Analytics, were 69,482,978, up 55% from 2008's 45 million unique visitors. Those vistors racked up 228,202,753 page views in 2009, up 90% from 2008's 120 million page views. TechCrunch is the largest site in our network, followed by CrunchGear, CrunchBase, MobileCrunch and TechCrunchIT, in that order. Google search is the single biggest source of traffic, although it decreased from 37.3% in 2008 to 29.6% in 2009. Direct traffic is second, at 24% in 2009 (v. 25.3% in 2008). Then there's a big drop to Digg (5.1% in 2009, 5.3% in 2008), Google sites (Reader, etc. (3.18% in 2009, 4.2% in 2008) and Twitter (2.9% in 2009, 1.2% in 2008). Feedburner, TechMeme, Facebook and Hacker News rounded out the list of top referrers in 2009. Traffic so far in 2010 is way, way up on the TechCrunch sites (11.7 million unique visitors so far in 2009). We've heard anecdotally from others that traffic has surged in 2010 across most Internet sites. We'll be digging into that trend shortly, too.      
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| | My Bloody Valentine: Expedia.com
February 14, 2010 at 7:21 PM | |
| |  As you know, today is Valentine's Day. As such, I thought it was the perfect time to write a love sonnet for my new favorite company: Expedia.com. Actually, I'll do the opposite.
Seeing as it's a long weekend in the United States (President's Day is on Monday), I decided I was going to set up a little trip to get away with the girl I'm seeing. A few weeks ago, I set up all the plans for what I thought would be a nice, relaxing weekend. It's actually been anything but relaxing. My mistake? Using Expedia to book it. After a few hours of driving, we pulled into our destination yesterday and attempt to check-in to the hotel. Problem 1: they've never heard of us. My name is nowhere to be found in their reservation system. Problem 2: they were completely booked. Problem 3: even if there was a cancellation, there was a waiting list for a room because apparently, Expedia had done this exact thing to no fewer than four other couples — just at this hotel alone. So what happened? Well, it took me a couple hours to get a straight answer out of anyone, but apparently, the system that Expedia uses to book reservation with its partner hotels is a mixture of antiquated and just completely fucked up. Because it would be too much of a hassle, and more importantly, cost too much money, Expedia has an automated system for communicating with its partners. Sometimes this is done with an email, sometimes this is done with a fax. Yes, a fax. In my case, Expedia's system apparently faxed the reservation to the hotel I booked. It then claims it got a confirmation back that my hotel room was all set and ready for my arrival. The only problem? According to the hotel, not only did they not receive the fax, but obviously they never sent the confirmation back. And why would they? It turns out all their rooms had already been booked before I attempted to book mine through Expedia. Of course, according to Expedia, there were plenty of rooms available when I booked — I even had a many room options to choose from. The icing on the Valentine's Day cake though was my subsequent six calls to and from Expedia. For the first one, after waiting on hold for 45 minutes, I was told that according to their system, my reservation was indeed confirmed. I knew this would be Expedia's stance because I received an email from Expedia a few days prior stating that it was confirmed. After I made it very clear to the poor girl (poor, both for having to face my wrath, and working for this awful company) that there was definitely no room under my name at my supposedly booked hotel, she didn't seem too clear about what to do. I was demanding a full refund (obviously) and demanding that they book me another room in the city and pay for that. She put me on hold so she could talk to her manager. When she came back on 15 minutes later, she wanted to make sure I booked the room correctly in the first place. I demanded to speak to her superior. This guy was great (that's sarcasm). Not only was he trying to convince me that this wasn't Expedia's fault, but he wasn't sure they'd be able to reimburse me for the room that they had never actually booked for me, and that I clearly wasn't going to be staying in. He said he'd have to call me back. Meanwhile, I get a call from another Expedia agent whom the hotel had apparently called because again, this had happened a number of times just this day for the same hotel with Expedia. He wanted to let me know that the hotel was overbooked and my reservation wouldn't be honored. Thanks buddy. The other agent finally calls me back. Good news: he thinks he can refund what I paid for the hotel that I'm not staying at, but wants to make sure I want another room booked for me in the city. If so, they might take some of the refund to pay for that. At this point I start really yelling. On the street. With a lot of children around. After a solid five minutes of verbal abuse from me including no shortage of swear words, he sees my point. But he still has to call his supervisor to okay any kind of deal he can cut. He needs to call me back again, but assures me that when he does, he'll have another room for me and the refund in my account. He calls me back. The good news: the refund has been processed. The bad news: there are no other rooms in the city that Expedia can book for me. Not one. Further, if I am able to find my own room outside of Expedia, the company can't do anything for me in terms of reimbursement. He is only authorized to offer me a $100 gift certificate to use for a future Expedia purchase. If there is anything in the world I want less at this point, I can't think of it. I'm certainly never going to book another trip through this site again. Hearing me still upset, he suggests that maybe if I book a more expensive place, Expedia can make up the difference. That's a ridiculous proposal for a number of reasons, but the best is that there is no way I'm going to be able to find a hotel nicer than the one I had thought I had booked to stay at on Valentine's Day weekend. The only options were going to be shittier ones — and those are probably taken too. So maybe Expedia was trying to trick me into paying me negative $500, I'm not sure. At this point we're almost 2 hours into my little romantic getaway so I ask for his supervisor's number, his supervisor's email, my reference number, anything he can give me. I hang up the phone. I tried calling them. It's a switchboard. No one seems clear as to who I should talk to. So I write this now from my quaint (used kindly) little motel that I had to book myself, at a ridiculous rate because it was so last-minute on a busy weekend, with my own money. Never in my life have I had an experience as bad as I just did with an online company. This includes Comcast and AT&T. Expedia just made them look like models of business perfection. Expedia, which was founded as a division of Microsoft in 1995, was later spun-off into its own company in the IPO-happy days of 1999. Ticketmaster then bought it in 2001, and eventually, it became a company under the IAC conglomerate. IAC spun it off again in 2005 as Expedia, Inc, which also includes the sites Hotels.com, TripAdvisor, HotWire, and others. In other words, the company's history has been a mess. Despite being an industry bicycle (everyone has had a ride), Expedia still manages to make $3 billion in revenues a year — undoubtedly helped by cases like mine where they try to make you pay for places you can't even stay at because they're can't seem to figure out how to properly do a confirmation. Well, except if that confirmation is with one of their never-ending chain of superiors who need to confirm a Kleenex in the case of an employee sneeze. And so ends my love story about Expedia. I write this now both because it's a nice Valentine's Day tale, but also as a warning to anyone using the service. A simple Google search yields results that show I'm hardly alone in my experience. In fact, the number of hate sites specifically about Expedia is quite impressive. There are far too many other competent companies out there that do the same thing, including a number of startups. Kayak is the one you hear about the most, unfortunately, they have a deal to offer up Expedia results first. Feel free to leave your favorite travel startups in the comments, I'd really like to know the best alternatives. I also write this because even if Barry Diller (Chairman) or some other higher-up sees this post and offers me a full reimbursement of my trip, I'm not accepting it at this point. They may not have ruined my Valentine's Day, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. Dearest Expedia, Happy Valentine's Day. It's over. Love, MG      
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| | Sony Ericsson To Pre-Load Gokivo Navigator Onto New Windows Mobile Handsets
February 14, 2010 at 12:10 PM | |
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Unlike most other smartphone platforms, Windows Mobile doesn't come with a mapping application pre-installed by default. While this may very well change with the soon-to-be-announced Windows Mobile 7, it has thus far been up to the handset manufacturer to throw in a map app if they so choose. Later this week, messaging/location technology providers TCS will announce that Sony Ericsson has chosen their turn-by-turn application, Gokivo, to be pre-loaded onto future Sony Ericsson-made Windows Mobile handsets. The first Sony Ericsson handset to come with Gokivo out of the box will be the Aspen, which was just announced last week. This is pretty big news for TCS; they just acquired the company behind Gokivo, Networks In Motion, back in December, and this is the first time any manufacturer has chosen to pre-install the app at the factory. The flagship features, according to TCS: - Local Search
- Traffic and Weather
- Location Sharing
While it's great news for TCS, I have to wonder: with Nokia and Google's recent moves toward making turn-by-turn navigation a standard feature on S60 and Android, how much longer will smartphone consumers be willing to cough up a subscription fee?      
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| | Twiangulate Who You Share In Common With Other People On Twitter
February 14, 2010 at 11:41 AM | |
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Here's a good virtual parlor game. Pick any two or three Twitter users, and Twiangulate which friends or followers they have in common. Twiangulate is a site that shows the overlap between your social graph and any tow other people on Twitter. It shows the resulting names as a list or an interactive social map. For instance, if you click on the image at right, you will see an enlarged version of a map I made to see who I follow in common with @fredwilson and @anildash. Fred Wilson follows 463 people, Anil follows 573, and I follow 315. Yet according to Twiangulate, we have 81 common "friends," which perhaps says something about how insular the world of Web startups and social media can be. In contrast, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and I only have 15 common "friends." So who are some of the people Fred, Anil, and I all listen to on Twitter? Some of the common people we follow include Josh Kopelman, Chris Dixon, John Borthwick, Dennis Crowley, Doc Searls, Steve Case, Joshua Schachter, Danny Sullivan, Bradley Horowitz, Michael Arrington, and Jeff Jarvis. Are we listening to the right people or do we suffer from groupthink? Who do you overlap with the most on Twitter?      
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| | Rant: Google Translate Toolbar In Chrome 5 Needs An 'Off' Button
February 14, 2010 at 9:43 AM | |
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Ever since I upgraded my beloved Chrome browser to version 5 on my (Windows) computer, I've been wanting to get something off my chest about a new feature that was baked into it, one that annoys me to no end. With the update to the most recent version of the program came an integration with Google Translate, a feature that makes a custom toolbar appear under the bookmarks bar whenever I visit a Web page that contains text in a language other than English. Basically, Google Chrome supposes that I don't understand any other languages besides English by default and enables me to translate Web pages in say, Spanish or Dutch, with one click. Thanks for the help, Google, but how about you let me turn that damn toolbar off? You see, unlike, the Google Translate extension for Chrome, this particular feature found its way to my most-used browser without asking for permission and no desire to leave any time soon. And while I'm sure a lot of people will think it's a useful add-on, I just want to get rid of this intrusive little bugger as quickly as possible. Right now, the toolbar asks me to confirm or decline if I would like to translate Web pages. When I click 'Nope', the toolbar disappears, only to reappear every time I jump to another Web page on the same website. Ah, but let's see, there's an Options button on the right hand side of the toolbar (which you can see on the larger image that you can view when you click through on the image embedded above). There are the options: - Never translate Spanish
- Never translate this site
- About Google Translate The third option leads to a Chrome Help page with nothing on it, and the actual settings presented are insufficient: I don't want to have to indicate for every language on the planet that I never want to see the toolbar pop up again, and I sure as hell ain't gonna do it for all the non-English Web pages on the Internet I visit from this point forward. What's missing is an option to disable the toolbar completely, and I can only hope the next stable release of Chrome provides users like myself with a choice. Chrome's a great, fast, free browser, but it's those little things that can drive me insane. And I do realize this is a developer version, so consider this constructive feedback from an otherwise very happy user. End rant.      
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| | TED Organizer Trashes Speaker, Fails Social IQ Test
February 14, 2010 at 3:15 AM | |
| |  TED Organizer Chris Anderson isn't a man to be trifled with. If you criticize his event you don't get invited back (which is why we see a bunch of nonsense articles about the event that don't mean anything at all, but praise heavily). But it's always fine for Anderson to trash his own speakers.
"I know I shouldn't say this about one of my own speakers," he said on Twitter, "but I thought Sarah Silverman was god-awful…" Silverman's crime? She made people uncomfortable by saying, over and over, that she wanted to adopt a retarded child. Like other comedians lately, she was using the word to remove its power to hurt people, and as a jab at Governor Palin's recent jihad against the word. Apparently the TED crowd didn't get the joke. Here's a first hand version of what happened from a TED attendee who asked not to be named, since he or she would certainly never be invited back to the event: What's not funny is when people try to give certain words too much power over you and I think people could forgive the farts, doodies, penises and vaginas (I mean they did in the other talks), but what they couldn't forgive was Sarah Silverman saying with absolute seriousness (I'm recalling from memory): "I want to adopt a special needs child (to which one person applauded), because adopting a special needs child, who would do that? Only an awesome person, right?" I looked around the room and I knew exactly what was coming next. She was going to say retarded and not only was she going to say it, she was going to drop it like 10 times. I knew it wouldn't be ok, but I was excited about it. Words are powerful. They are mightier than the sword and all of that, but if you let them have too much power, you can create what I feel is evil. You create a society of people who are so concerned about what they say and what is PC and you destroy creative expression. Sarah was following suit behind Megan McCain and Stephen Colbert in making fun of Sarah Palin. She didn't say this, but I knew this. Why did I know this? Because this is a trend with comedians right now and I know why they are doing it. They are doing it for a cause. They don't want that word turned into the "r word". Saying the word "retarded" can only have extreme negative power if you let it and Sarah Silverman is brave, because she got on stage in front of some global minds and dropped it over and over and over. She went on to say: "The only problem with adopting a retarded child is that the retarded child, when you are 80 is well, still retarded and that she wouldn't enjoy the freedoms of setting them free at age 18, so she was only going to adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness so it has an expiration date, because who would adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness? Well, someone who was awesome like her". The room went silent and she went on with her show and sang a song about how all of the penises in the world couldn't fill your heart holes. So, the theme of TED was "What the world needs now" and I think the world needs more Sarah. The world needs to take many things seriously and many things less seriously. The world needs to get its sense of humor back. It needs to allow people to express themselves without feeling the overwhelming pressures of society bearing down and being a social pariah. Sarah is a super hero in my opinion. When she went off the stage, about half the room applauded and probably half of those only did so out of an automatic response. Then, one brave "soul" as TED would call us shouted out among the silence that followed: ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE! and those of us who felt the same way stood up cheering. Collectively, we were loud enough to let the stage manager know we wanted her back and we wanted to hear her say something more, be asked a question or better yet keep performing. They called out to her and for a while it seemed she had already left the building, but she came back on stage and looked confused. They told her, "They wanted you to come back to thank you and we'd do an encore but there's no time, etc. etc." I'm of the opinion that if your crowd wants an encore, you fucking give it to them. Even if it means your schedule runs over. I mean, after all, we are adults. All but maybe 3 members of the audience are adults and anyone who brought kids or kids who attended are well aware they are listening to some grown up ideas. So, you can't use that excuse. No, they were uncomfortable and embarrassed. They had invited Sarah Silverman to TED and she made everyone feel uncomfortable. They should be embarrassed because they didn't bother to watch her work before she came to get a full understanding of who she is and what she does. She's a modern day Joan Rivers! She's going to say cunt, fuck, shit, poop and guess what. Retard. The whole thing, as TechCrunch would say, was an intelligence test and it had EVERYTHING to do with play. Playing with words and playing with different types of reactions to words and she's a master and for that I applaud her again. And a follow up email: I thought about this even more. I can understand why people don't want a condition used as an insult. If you look up idiot, imbacile, dumb, etc.. they are all derogatory terms for someone with mental retardation, so this condition has been plagued with the condition used as derogatory term for quite some time. I have sympathy for it, but I still think that isn't a reason to stop using the word. I started thinking about the word Nigga and the word gay. Southpark has a great episode on the word gay and how it has morphed from referring to an actual homosexual to meaning something entirely different. So, people were upset about that, but some may argue that the tension between the two sides created more good for gay rights and bringing gays to light than ever before. I know the word nigga has. It pisses me off to no end that I can't use that word out of fear for my own life. Blacks took it away, made it their own and even better made it *COOL* and now I feel jealous about it. I want to walk up to my pals and say "what's up nigga", but I can't, but maybe if someone is brave at TED next year or somewhere else and decides to shock a few people I'll be able to. Now, Chris Anderson might have an issue with the whole talk, the retarded child stuff, the jew stuff, the penis stuff, the poop and whatever else and maybe his specific issue wasn't that, but that's what everyone talked about afterward. In a conference where so much effort is put on the children, Sarah crossed the comfort bar. It took us out of kumbaya for 18 minutes and made us squirm and laugh. Perhaps TEDsters should just stick to the simple stuff. Slavery sucks, for example. Glad we finally got that controversial topic on the table for discussion. 
     
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