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21 May ' 18:26
posted 2 hours agoMachinima Gets $35M In Funding, Led By Google
After weeks of speculation, online video distributor Machinima announced Monday that it has closed a $35 million funding round led by Google, which also included existing investors Redpoint Ventures and MK Capital. The new financing comes as Google’s YouTube has been investing heavily in bringing in all sorts of new original programming.
The Machinima network is the largest single page view generator for YouTube, with more than 1.6 billion video views in the month of April. And YouTube is an invaluable partner for Machinima, as it is the company’s primary distribution and monetization platform. With the funding, Machinima says it will invest in content and global sales, as well as international expansion and distribution.
posted 2 hours agoDisrupt NYC Day 1: Your Startup Battlefield Companies
Our very first day of Disrupt NYC is over and the conference started off with a bang. We had memorable chats, dove into fashion for a bit, hung out with the Startup Alley companies and witnessed 15 startups launch their products in our first day of the Startup Battlefield.
Even though we will have brand-new companies launching tomorrow while fighting for the ultimate prize of $50,000 and the Disrupt Cup, we wanted to take a moment to highlight all that we saw today. There were some brilliant companies, so be sure to check all of them out below. The Internet was buzzing with positive words about each. This is going to be a tough battle. Which company was your favorite?
Babelverse Is Out To Democratize Translation
Babelverse won the opportunity to appear at TechCrunch Disrupt from the Startup Alley and with little notice ended up giving a slick pitch. Essentially this is a solution for universal speech translation, powered by a global community of human interpreters: it means anyone can be an interpreter. We covered its launch back in January but here’s a quick rundown.
Machine translation, as we know, is not reliable. So what we’re looking here is a marketplace for translation.
People practice to interpret and move up through the system, towards being more professional interpreters. Think of it as a sort of Demand Media platform for interpreting languages.
Tagbrand Gives Fashionistas An App To Check-In Their Brands
“All people wear clothes!” declared one of Tagbrand’s founders on stage at Disrupt today. That’s true, but let’s review.
DailyBooth was (is still perhaps?) a phenomenon for a time as people became accustomed to sharing their daily lives in a more quirky manner than mere video can afford. (Ok, OK, it’s a bunch of teenagers sharing their zits, but work with me here, people). Now Tagbrand wants to apply that model to fashion, but with a tagging twist.
The model is simple enough. Take and upload photos of what branded clothes you are wearing and tag them. Effectively, it’s a photo check-in for brands, or ‘Foursquare for fashion’, if you will.
Stevie Turns Your Social Feeds Into TV Shows
We spend more and more time on social networks, but sometimes it can feel like work. I mean, scrolling through your news feed isn’t work work, but it’s not quite as easy as vegging out on your couch and watching TV.
That’s where a new startup called Stevie comes in, with a website launching today at Disrupt, along with mobile apps that function as remote controls. Stevie looks at content shared in your social network feeds and elsewhere on the Web, and it assembles that content into TV shows that you can watch, shows with names like The Comedy Strip, Music Non-Stop, and Celeb TV. Naturally, the shows incorporate video content that your friends have shared, but they also include things like Facebook status updates, tweets, shared headlines, and birthdays, running mostly as tickers under the video. Essentially, it’s a way to watch Facebook and Twitter on your TV.
StyleSaint Wants To Turn Virtual Fashion Tear Sheets Into Custom Apparel
As we covered earlier today, the fashion vertical in tech has exploded, with myriad unique companies clamoring to take a bite out of Amazon’s lunch, and a chunk out of the trillion dollar apparel industry. One of the most unique premises I’ve seen thus far is StyleSaint, a startup which at first glance seems like a Pinterest for fashion, but with a unique real-life twist.
To use StyleSaint in its current form, log in with Facebook or Twitter and create an account, once logged on, you can chose from over 55K “tear sheet” images from which to create your own Stylebook, once you’ve got more than ten tear sheets loaded, you can hit the “Create Stylebooks” link in the top right and StyleSaint will automatically import, then publish, the last ten sheets you’ve torn. Alternatively you can drag-and-drop the tears to create a custom stylebook. Click on “Create” to publish to the site.
posted 4 hours agoLed By Former Microsofties, GitHub Brings The Party To Enterprise With New Windows Client
GitHub, the source code hosting and collaboration service, has been growing like gangbusters. The site now has over 1.6 million registered developers, hosting over 2.8 million repositories on everything from jQuery and Ruby on Rails to node.js and Redis. At the outset, Github was just a side project, a tool to make developers’ lives easier (its first slogan: “Git hosting: No longer a pain in the ass.”) Github is still a boot-strapped operation, but as both its user base and its own hacker collective (now at 73 strong) have grown, there has been an increasing demand for tools that fall outside Apple’s domain.
Today, about 50 percent of GitHub’s traffic comes from Windows users, and, as a result, the startup has finally heeded demand and is now officially bringing the party to Windows, launching a desktop app to address the challenges of developing on Windows and to make it easy for Windows developers to collaborate in open-source and private repositories.
posted 4 hours agoPunch! Launches A Platform For Building Interactive iPad Apps, Sans Developers
It’s a familiar story in the tech world: A company wants to build a consumer product, finds that the necessary tools aren’t available, creates its own tools, then realizes it has created a broader platform.
David Bennahum offers some examples: Zip2VignetteTypePad. And yes, his startup Punch!, where Bennahum is co-founder and CEO, and which is launching its publishing platform at Disrupt.
The Power Of Disrupt: gTar Raises $30,000 On Kickstarter In Two Hours
Incident took the stage this afternoon at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC and debuted the gTar. It’s safe to say that they are already a major contender for the Disrupt Cup.
The startup wowed the crowd with their iPhone-powered teaching guitar. The judges loved it. The crowd loved. And most importantly, fans turned to the startup’s Kickstarter campaign where funding took off like a rocket. Prior to hitting the stage, the gTar had raised just a touch above $10,000. Now, almost exactly two hours after their Disrupt debut, their Kickstarter funding (a.k.a. pre-orders) is north of $42,000 and rising fast.
posted 4 hours agoDigital Video Consolidation: Avail-TVN Picks Up $100M From Carlyle, Buys UK’s On Demand Group For $27M
A double-whammy in the digital video space today: Avail-TVN, a video services provider that works with companies like NBC, Univision, and brands like Mattel, has that it has picked up $100 million in financing led by the Carlyle Group, and it is using those funds to make an acquisition outside of the U.S., buying rival video service provider On Demand Group in the UK from its existing owner, SeaChange International, for $27 million. Avail-TVN says that the deal will make it the largest provider of digital video services in the world.
The move is a sign of how the digital TV industry is already fairly large in its geographical reach, but in many cases is still only providing incremental revenue on top of more traditional TV revenue streams — and so companies that work in this space, which can be capital intensive, are best suited to bulk up their scale to survive.
KurbKarma: A Social Network, And App, To Find Parking Where And When You Need It
We have all been there: you are in your car, you need to park, and you cannot, no matter how much you try, find a space. You see cars pulling away, but it’s too far for you to get there before another car swoops in. You see people walking and you trail them, hoping they’re heading to a vehicle. It’s a frustrating state of affairs, but a new startup, KurbKarma, is launching today at TC Disrupt New York to try to solve it.
“Parking where and when you need it” is the basic idea here: you have people who have spaces they are about to leave; and you have people who need spaces. The app (available for iOS) works like an ad hoc social network to link these people up. Those who have a space can post their status on an app, those who need a space find one on the map. The app integrates with Google Maps to plot spaces near you, and lets you send messages — several sendable with the touch of a button — to let the space owners know how far away you are.
Spaces are “sold” with KarmaKredits: people who donate their spot pick up good Karma, in the form of KarmaKredits. People who need a space use their KarmaKredits to buy them. Each space “costs” two KarmaKredits.
Open Garden Lets You Crowdsource Your Mobile Connectivity
What if you couldn’t just share your Internet connection with the few WiFi devices tethered to your phone or hotspot, but with pretty much everybody around you? Open Garden, which is launching at Disrupt today, lets you create a mesh network that ties together all the Open Garden-enabled devices around you into one large network that then automatically shares Internet access and bandwidth between all of these devices. Basically, Open Garden wants to become a crowd-sourcing platform for mobile bandwidth.
posted 5 hours agoCallApp Uses Social Data To Build A Smarter Smartphone Contact Book
One of my least favorite moments of the day comes when my iPhone rings and the number isn’t in my contact book. Is it an important call from an entrepreneur? A random PR person pitching me? Or just a telemarketer? I won’t know until I pick up.
CallApp, a startup launching today at Disrupt, wants to eliminate those awkward moments, for starters. It’s creating what CEO and co-founder Oded Volovitz calls a “universal social contact book.” It’s drawing data from social networks and other data sources to give users more context about phone calls and other communication. The data also comes from CallApp users — users can edit CallApp listings, and if they can want, they can add their contact book into the company’s general database.
posted 5 hours agoK3 Server Is Making Enterprise Application Integrations More Efficient, Reduces Work By Half
How is data moved between systems? In the enterprise environment, point-to-point application interfaces are either handled with expensive and cumbersome utilities or, more likely, with custom code…and frankly, a lot of manual labor. BroadPeak Partners has a better idea. The company is today introducing its application known as K3 Server, a system that aims to disrupt the traditional enterprise interface market by making it easier for I.T. to build, and for end users to tweak, the way code is handled, transformed, reconciled, mapped and enriched as it moves in between systems.
posted 5 hours agoMajor Steal: King.com Poaches Talent Behind EA’s Sims Social To Lead New London Studio
King.com, the European-casual-gaming-company-that-could, is cementing its ascendance on the Facebook platform by poaching one of the key producers responsible for EA’s Sims Social and opening a new game development studio in London. The company just hired Catharina Mallet away from EA to lead the new studio, which should have 40 people by year-end (with her departure first being noted by Business Insider last week).
King.com, which started in Sweden and hasn’t taken outside funding since raising $43 million seven years ago, is one of two European gaming companies that have made a serious run on the Facebook platform in the last year. While Zynga has seen its revenue growth slow and other longtime Facebook developers like Crowdstar and Funzio have mostly moved onto mobile games, both King.com and Germany’s Wooga have both climbed up the developer leaderboards.
King.com has beat out EA and more recently, Wooga, for the #2 spot among game developers in terms of daily active users on Facebook, according to AppData. The number of game sessions has also blown up by tenfold to 3 billion per month, from 300 million a year ago.
posted 5 hours agoUberConference Aims To Fix Crappy Conference Calls
We all hate conference calls — having to dial in, manually enter a room code and sometimes having to enter a passcode on top of that. Once you’ve actually logged in, there’s a whole lot of talking on top of one another, and a lot of re-introducing yourself so that everyone knows who’s talking at any given time. UberConference, which was created by Firespotter Labs and is being launched as part of the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt, hopes to fix all that by providing a visual interface to all others on the call.
Audio conferencing is not just a pain in the ass, but it’s also a huge business — a $3 billion business — that’s mostly controlled by big telco providers, such as AT&T and Verizon. By providing an easy-to-use alternative, UberConference hopes to disrupt the existing market
At TechCrunch Disrupt, Startup Alley Is Where the Shootouts Happen
Well folks, while you may think all the action is on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, the flip side of the coin is the enormous amount of buzz, energy and networking that happens in Startup Alley. Today there are 44 companies exhibiting in the Alley itself, not to mention the 20+ companies in the Israeli pavilion which makes its second appearance at Disrupt. We’ll have another brand new 47 companies in Startup Alley tomorrow. You can check out all the companies today here
But none of this is just for show because attendees to Disrupt get to vote on their favourite companies, and those votes, plus the votes of TC staff, means one of them gets to pitch at the end of each day.
Incident Launches The gTar at Disrupt, An iPhone-Powered Electronic Teaching Guitar
The gTar by Incident is disruption defined. It takes the guitar, an instrument with a steep learning curve, and adds a bit of digital wizardry in the form of an embedded iPhone to make learning dramatically easier. The company brags that their modern take on the guitar allows for three levels of difficulty, rather than the traditional single really difficult one. But thanks to the iPhone and a clever app, this $450 electronic guitar essentially teaches users the ins and outs of the instrument.
The startup recently turned to Kickstarter to raise $100,000. However today they gave the crowd at Disrupt a musical treat — a demonstration at Startup Alley. And the device seemed to work as advertised.
Koemei Is Out To Transcribe All Video And Make It Searchable
Lord knows there is a lot of online video out there these days, but only a tiny proportion of it has been transcribed (less than 1% according to some estimates). Searching the mountains of video generated by businesses, governments and educational institutions for the valuable information within is almost impossible because the words hidden in the audio are invisible to search. Waiting for it is not just the world, but the many people who can’t access that video because of their disabilities. Transcription unlocks the gold-dust buried in them there video hills.
This would involve transcription on a vast scale, but this is exactly the problem Koemei aims to tackle. It’s a SAAS platform for speech recognition in video. Today at TechCrunch Disrupt it announced it has completed an integration with YouTube’s API in preparation for a potential launch. It also announced the successful completion of its first pilot with the University of Geneva and IMD Business School.
posted 6 hours agoAfter Walking Away From Acquisition Talks With Facebook, Ark Opens Its People Search Engine
Following a jam-packed beta test and a jaw-dropping $4.2 million seed round, Ark people search is open for sign ups…at least for the next three days. Ark lets you sift through profiles on Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other services to help you find out which of your high school classmates live in New York, see which friends are single, and connect with strangers who share your interests by layering up to 30 characteristic filters.
The problem of too much social data and too little discoverability is so widespread that Facebook even discussed a possible acquisition of Ark. But instead its PhD founders decided to see how far they can ride their cute penguin logo. Soon it will launch native mobile apps with some of most useful push notifications I’ve seen. And as part of its limited launch today at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, Ark is accepting new users at ark.com/tcd until the end of the conference on Wednesday.
AnchorFree — Received $52M in Series C funding from Goldman Sachs5.21.20125.21.2012Shocking Technologies — Received $10.5M in Unattributed funding from Littelfuse5.21.2012Xfire — Received $3M in Unattributed funding from IDM Venture Capital5.21.20125.21.20125.21.20125.21.20125.21.20125.21.20125.21.20125.21.20125.21.20125.21.2012Stylebook Publishing Tool — Product added to CrunchBase- Sprint’s EVO 4G LTE Has Cleared U.S. Customs, Pre-Orders To Be Filled As Early As May 24
- The Power Of Disrupt: gTar Raises $30,000 On Kickstarter In Two Hours
- Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, And Others Will Share Wi-Fi Hot Spots
- Incident Launches The gTar at Disrupt, An iPhone-Powered Electronic Teaching Guitar
- Apple Wants Immediate Ban On Galaxy Tab 10.1 In The USA
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20 May ' 14:23
Alexander Haislip, Contributorposted 19 mins agoSilicon Valley Can Do Better Than Facebook
Congratulations to Facebook for going public. Congratulations to the employees that are now millionaires. Congratulations to the founders who are now billionaires. Congratulations to the bankers, lawyers and investors who have added to their already considerable wealth. You’ve grasped the brass ring we’re all reaching for.
Yet the company that’s been created isn’t what I want from Silicon Valley.
posted 3 hours agoIntroducing Our 2012 Disrupt NYC Hackathon Winners: Thingscription, PoachBase, And Practikhan!
After nearly 24 hours of fighting fatigue and crafting code, our Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon is finally drawing to a close. Not a moment too soon — I think some of our hackers are about ready to keel over at this point.
Nevertheless, we just got an eyeful of 92 projects that our wonderful hackers have been slaving away on through the night, but there are only three teams will be able to show off their work at on the main Disrupt stage this Wednesday.
posted 3 hours agoTwitter Back Up In Pakistan After An Order From The Prime Minister
A temporary solution to the drama that unfolded this morning when Twitter was blocked in Pakistan — some believe over representations of the Prophet Mohammed and Twitter’s refusal to block these images; and some believe while it was testing an image filtering service. Whatever it was, the site is now back up –after an order from Prime Minister.
Pakistan’s Express Tribune is reporting that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani made the decision after the site was down for the day on a mandate from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. But it is still not clear why the authorities shut down access in the first place.
posted 4 hours agoNew Project, Roominate, Offers A Fully-Wired Dollhouse For Kids
Teaching kids – especially little girls – about electronics is a hard job. First, there’s the electricity. Then there’s the sense that soldering, wiring, and lining up LEDs is considerably less fun than watching Tangled. This project, called Roominate, aims to change the way girls think about electricity.
The kit consists of a set of tiny furniture with built-in wires and switches. You can wire up your dollhouse however you like, adding lamps and switches. $49 gets you one regular room and $95 gets you a “duplex.”
posted 4 hours agoWatch The Hackathon Presentations Live! (Update)
A mere 24 hours ago, coders started hacking with hopes and dreams of building the next great app or program. Many participants stayed overnight, fueled on gumption and Red Bull. Others cut out early, apparently satisfied with their creation. But they’re all back now, waiting to present on our massive Disrupt stage. Watch it live!
posted 4 hours agoWhat’s Big, Blue, Hopes To Save Our Planet And Is Not Facebook?
There have been a lot of complaints voiced over the last couple of years from people who wish entrepreneurs would address the world’s “real problems” or do “something bigger” rather than create “me too” applications and websites. I’m not a fan of that sentiment but that’s really a whole other post I need to write. In all honesty, there’s a place and need in the world for all sorts of business visions – big and small.
And after watching a “big vision” TED talk from a few years ago, it has changed my life. Jane McGonigal presented this idea: Millions of people around the world are becoming gaming and computer virtuosos. Through video games, people journey to alternate “worlds” where they have epic journeys and become heroes. What if we tapped into that talent and desire for a world changing quest to change our own? What if we changed the idea behind gaming completely to create games that directly had a real world impact?
posted 5 hours agoSpaceX To Attempt A Second Launch On Tuesday, May 22
SpaceX and Elon Musk will not be held from the history books. Last night the company announced that engineers were currently replacing a faulty valve on engine #5, and if successful pending a data review today, the company would attempt a second launch on Tuesday, May 22nd. This comes as SpaceX’s maiden voyage to the International Space Station was cut a half second short by an automated safety function built into the rocket.
Jon Evans, Columnistposted 5 hours agoIn Which The Maker Faire Restores Your Humble Correspondent’s Faith In Humanity
A life-size fire-breathing dragon. A fully robotic calliope band. A full-scale flight simulator built by teenagers. An entire herd of homemade R2-D2s. Electric cars, steampunk fashion, a robot petting zoo, a piano made of bananas, and a cardboard Trojan Horse. Plus a zillion different interactive attractions, classes, and events for kids of all ages. Yes, the Maker Faire is back in town, and only just in time.
It was exactly the tonic I needed after my inability to get excited about the Facebook IPO and my ongoing sense that most of the Valley is focused on building meaningless mobile/social/local/scrapbooking sugar water. This was a place full of people building real, tangible things for the sake of sheer awesomeness. Oh–and while they’re at it, almost as a side effect, hidden behind their Burning-Man-esque decor is a community and technology ready to turn the whole planet on its ear.
The maker movement has hit an interesting flux point; its amateurs and enthusiasts, much like the computer geeks of the 1970s and 1980s, now stand on the verge of watching their hobby erupt into big business that will reshape the way people everywhere live. Do I sound hyperbolic? Don’t just take my word for it; listen to the mighty Economist, which in its British understated fashion recently called digital manufacturing no less than “The third industrial revolution.”
posted 6 hours agoFrom A TC40 Win To A $170M Intuit Acquisition, Mint.com Tells All
With Disrupt NYC 2012 literally a day away (tickets here), it’s hard not to think about the past success of our former Battlefield startups. I’ve taken a close look at quite a few over the past couple weeks, and to be honest none have come as far as Mint.com. The company has rocketed to success since launching at TC40 in September, 2007, and subsequently winning the top prize at the Battlefield.
The personal finance service has raised a total of $38.1 million over the course of the past five years, and has gone on to be acquired by Intuit for a whopping $170 million in September of 2009.
When I spoke to VP and general manager of Mint, Aaron Forth, he said that two very specific things, the financial crisis of 2008/09 and a launch on the TechCrunch Disrupt stage, were the main factors of the company’s success, both in acquiring users and being themselves acquired.
posted 6 hours agoMorning, Hackers! The 24-Hour Disrupt NYC Hackathon: Coding Ends, Judging Starts Soon
It’s been a long, caffeine-fueled ride for the hundreds of hackers who have set up at our big Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon, but the furious process of taking a wild idea and turning it into something real is finally winding down.
Projects were being finalized, UIs were being tweaked, last minute Red Bulls were being downed — it was a quite a sight to see everyone buckling down for those final few minutes before submissions were due.
posted 6 hours agoSure, Draw Something. Just Not The Prophet
Pictures of the Prophet Mohammad have always been a highly contentious issue — they’re not explicitly prohibited in the Qu’ran but many Sunni Muslims forbid the idea, while others do not seem to mind as much. Among the latter group are those who feel that banning such images is a restriction on freedom of expression. The issue at the center of the Pakistan-blocks-Twitter story today has been reported to be around a viral activist campaign that’s been running for the past few years to point attention to this.
But as with the actual blocking of Twitter itself in Pakistan — there has been no official Pakistani government statement about what is actually behind the current Twitter block at the moment (here is a screenshot of an alleged email ordering the block to ISPs with no specific reason behind it) – it’s hard to pin down exactly what content was actually sent around that caused the block in the first place.
And at least one group is raising the question of whether this blockage could be related to the government testing a image filtering service — something with wider-ranging implications.
posted 10 hours agoReport: Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over Blasphemous Content, Facebook Complies? [Update: Back Up]
Another day, another example of a country making it harder for its people to use the web and some of its most effective channels of communication? There are reports coming in from Pakistan that it has become the latest country to ban the use of Twitter. Update: it’s now back up — new post explaining development here. Read below for full story.
According to the blog Dawn, the chairman of Pakistan’s telecommunications authority has today imposed the restriction because of blasphemous content: it reports that Chairman Mohammad Yaseen blocked the site today “because Twitter refused to remove material related to a competition on Facebook to post images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.” Facebook, apparently, has complied with the request, says the blog. Others are now starting to report the same, and below the break we have a screenshot of how accessing the site looks from one of our readers in Lahore who says he “cannot access the site at all.”
Getting blocked in Pakistan, if true, is particularly ironic because the two, paired up, played a major role in one of the most important news events to be broken in recent history: the raid and demise of Osama bin Laden, which was tweeted by at least two people watching the raids as they happened in the mountains of the country.
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20 May ' 03:40
This City Never Sleeps, And Neither Do The Hackers
It’s midnight.
The city is alive with Saturday night fever, and Pier 94 is just as awake, and perhaps a bit more drunk. Tequila shots (and plenty of beers) are flowing, along with Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and Energy Bites.
In other words, this place is like one giant vat of FourLoko, topped with a sprinkling of coders.
Meet The Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon Hackers
It’s been about eight hours since our big Disrupt Hackathon kicked off, and all of our intrepid hackers have been busy letting the code (and the caffeine) fly ever since.
I managed to tear a few of them away from their work (these folks are pretty motivated, so it took a bit of doing) to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they’ve been trying to crank out during the wee hours of the morning.
Day After IPO, Mark Zuckerberg Marries Longtime Girlfriend Priscilla Chan
What a week. After eight years, Mark Zuckerberg takes Facebook public at a $104 billion valuation. His longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan gets her medical degree from the UC San Francisco. He has his 28th birthday.
And to top it all off, they get married today! Mazel tov.
The Disrupt NYC Hackathon: We’re 8 Hours In
There’s a strong murmur in the room with random spurts of excitement. Hackers and coders have teamed up and mostly (hopefully) decided on a project. There are only 15 hours left. But night is approaching. That’s when things tend to get loopy thanks to the sudden influx of food and beer.
So far the event has been fantastic. There’s a 3:2 ratio of Macs vs PCs. Epic t-shirts are everywhere. Caffeine is flowing thanks to Red Bull and Outburst Energy Bites.
posted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayMay 18th, 2012May 18th, 2012May 18th, 2012May 18th, 2012May 18th, 2012 -
19 May ' 16:33
posted 1 hour agoThe Art Of Expression: T-Shirts Of The Disrupt NYC 2012 Hackathon
Hackers aren’t necessarily known for their fashion sense. Most of the time, a t-shirt and jeans is as far as it goes. But there are certain circumstances in which it’s clear that hackers pay a little extra attention after rolling out of bed in the morning. The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon is one of those instances, but that doesn’t mean that the go-to jeans and T have been abandoned.
Even better, our hackers are choosing to express themselves through the t-shirts, and I have to say that they’re some of the coolest I’ve seen. Last year in San Francisco, most of our hackers had something on their heads, whether it was a baseball cap, headphones, an Ushanka, or even a shower cap.
This year, it’s all about the classic T, but with a coder’s spin.
Without further ado, these are the most badass t-shirts of the TC Disrupt NYC Hackathon:
Jeremy Toeman, Contributorposted 2 hours agoThe Four Most Underhyped Trends In Social TV
Last time I took a look at the most over-hyped topics of the Future of TV, and I thought a great follow-up would be to look at the reverse case. After all, it’s easy to sit there and critique, but what about the positive side, where’s the action happening but not being talked about as much as it could be? Here are four things going on in the TV industry that definitely don’t get enough respect…
China Finally OKs Google’s Acquisition Of Motorola Mobility
It’s been just over nine months since Google announced their intentions to acquire hardware manufacturer Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, and now it seems that the final pieces of the deal have fallen into place.
According to a new report from the Associated Press, Chinese officials have finally given the Google-Motorola deal their blessing.
posted 6 hours agoThe Disrupt 2012 NYC Hackathon Is Officially On!
The anticipation is palpable.
Hundreds of hackers have congregated outside Manhattan’s Pier 94, planning, strategizing, and praying to baby Jesus that their fates will be similar to those of Group.meDocracy. We’ve seen plenty of Hackathon winners go on to do incredible things, make millions of dollars, and rise to startup stardom levels, but the journey isn’t a simple one.
Let me paint a little word picture of what this is sure to look like:
Steve Gillmor, Columnistposted 7 hours agoGillmor Gang: Don’t Click Here
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Gabe Rivera, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — play toe jam football in the shadow of the Facebook IPO. Try as we might, we can’t shake the weight of Facebook’s dominance of Techmeme and maybe the fate of the global economy. Greece, move over. @gaberivera joins near the 30 minute mark.
@scobleizer tries a reverse Statue of Liberty play around the forthcoming Samsung phone and the threat to Apple (nonexistent) but our hearts aren’t in it. I fail in a weak attempt to roll up everything under push notification. Face it: our hopes and dreams are now tied to our jobs as feeders of the Facebook Empire Please Twitter. Save us.
posted 7 hours agoThe Free Ride Is Over For Streaming Video
Comcast’s plans to do away with its 250 GB data cap and charge users based upon usage marks the end of an era for cable TV providers, and for the online video industry. No longer will users be able to endlessly stream all the content their hearts desire. Not just that, but the fact that usage-based pricing is arriving at the same time that more, higher-quality content is appearing online could have a dampening effect on demand for services like Netflix or Hulu Plus.
Comcast, of course, says that its new, usage-based pricing policy is pro-consumer, and to a certain extent it is. The average broadband subscriber — those who only use up about 8 GB or 10 GB of data a month — shouldn’t necessarily pay the same as those whose usage goes above 300 GB in the same period of time.
But for those of us who are avid streaming video users, usage-based pricing models could change the overall value proposition of watching video on the Internet.
posted 7 hours agoKickstarter: Meet CordLite, The Light-Up iPhone Cable For Night Owls
My set ritual before going to bed each night is as follows — turn out the lights, plug in my iPhone, take off my glasses and attempt vainly to nod off. Step two in that process can be a bit of a crapshoot in the dark, but the folks at Scrap Pile Labs have recently kicked off a new Kickstarter campaign for a product called the CordLite that just may come in handy.
As the name sort of implies, the CordLite is a dock connector cable for iDevices that, well, lights up thanks to a pair of forward-facing LEDs. It’s a very simple concept, but the thoughtful execution is what make this project worth keeping an eye on.
Neil Patel, Contributorposted 10 hours agoMarketing Lessons Startups Need to Learn from Google’s Project Glass Concept Video
You may have seen it by now…Google’s concept video about its new Project Glass. These glasses will do what your smart phone will do only without having to hold anything…you actually see your options at the side of your view.
You can get directions, send and receive texts, make calls, schedule tasks and even share your view with another person.
It’s a really exciting idea…especially if you love technology. But the actual product is easily years out from becoming a reality.
Was Google wise to release an idea so early? And should startups do the same?
posted 10 hours agoNewspaper Attacks UK Government For Its ‘Closeness’ To Google
UK tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail, has decided to raise the issue of Google’s influence on the UK government, after uncovering the fact that Conservative Party ministers have held meetings with Google an average of once a month since the General Election two years ago. There have been 23 meetings between Tory ministers and Google since June 2010, with Prime Minister David Cameron meeting Google three times and George Osborne – who as Chancellor of the Exchequer is supposed to meet with business leaders – four times in two years.
The story needs to be a seen in a wider context. The Conservatives have recently come under fire for having too close a relationship to another powerful entity, News Corporation (as did the Labour party during its tenure). A huge inquiry into Press standards has in large part focused on the ties between Rupert Murdoch’s media giant and the Conservatives.
But what the report buries way down in the article, is the number of times the newspaper itself has met with the Government. A Google spokesperson told us: “It’s absolutely right that governments speak with companies about issues that affect their citizens. The British Government makes the list of those meetings publicly available – including the Daily Mail’s 34 meetings over the same period.” In other words, the Daily Mail has met with the Government almost one and a half times a month (on average) since they entered office – that’s quite a bit more than Google has. It’s likely those were high-level meetings, not editorial ones.
posted 11 hours ago. But the launch didn’t happen. Nothing happened as longtime NASA commentator George Diller counted down the seconds, “3..2..1……We’ve had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur.” Musk tweeted
posted 15 hours ago, which makes apps for gifting friends and family. The terms of the deal are undisclosed but 16 employees of the startup will be joining Facebook. The purchase will help Facebook build up monetization prowess on mobile platforms — an area it’s admittedly weak in. The price was not disclosed.
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19 May ' 06:09
posted 37 mins agoSpaceX’s Historic Launch Aborted Less Than A Second Prior To Launch
“Entering terminal count autosequence. 60 seconds to engine fire. #DragonLaunch,” Tweeted Elon Musk as his space company was less than a minute away from it’s historic flight. But the launch didn’t happen. Nothing happened as Long-time NASA commentator George Diller counted down the seconds, “3..2..1……We’ve had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur.” Musk tweeted 11 minutes later at 5:06am EDT, “Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.”
Oliver Roup, ContributorHyperlinks Are Dumb And Bleeding Money; How To Ensure Yours Aren’t
When an email hits our inbox, we know not only who it’s from but their entire web imprint. LinkedIn can point out the profile of the woman you interviewed for a sales role last week and the gentleman you spoke with earlier in the year at a conference.
And rest assured that the dining room set you checked out over the weekend at CrateAndBarrel.com will haunt your online experience for the forseeable future.
Data — its collection and manipulation at scale — has revolutionized how we interact online. Homepages, banner advertisements and what we see in our Facebook timeline are all tailored-to-fit the reader, and we don’t give it a second thought.
But the hyperlink, the key feature that distinguishes hypertext from text has remained largely unchanged since Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web.
Scott Brave, Contributorposted yesterdayPersonalization Is Not A Feature
We’ve all watched from the sidelines as companies have come out in a burst of glory, and then, two years later, spent their venture capital, lost their user base, and failed to monetize. This begs the question – what are the factors that drive a company’s survival, differentiate it, and ultimately make it a winner? In today’s online world, personalization is increasingly making or breaking companies. The companies that win are the ones making personalization a key company value – not just a feature.
In the early days of the web, consumers were happy just to gain access to information. However, as technology became more sophisticated, and as more consumers and companies came online, we quickly moved out of the access age and into a state of information overload, often leaving consumers frustrated and confused. Companies that helped consumers cut through the clutter to reveal relevant information had a critical and sustainable competitive advantage in their respective areas. The concept of relevance is critical to the success of Google, for example.
posted yesterdayReal Tech Alert: Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 Ready For Takeoff To International Space Station
SpaceX, the private space exploration company founded by PalPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk, is ready to boldly go where no private company has legitimately attempted to go before: The International Space Station. (Live video of the rocket at Cape Canaveral in Florida is embedded above.)
posted yesterdayposted yesterdaywas obviously the single most discussed topic on Twitter today. The good folks over at social media data platform DataSift monitored what Twitter users were saying about the IPO throughout the day and came up with some interesting conclusions. Turns out, the ups and downs of how Twitter’s users felt about the stock
posted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterday. Sources tell us that the syndicate of banks underwriting the deal have been putting in buy orders to keep its price afloat. For Facebook itself, it’s actually a great outcome as the company didn’t leave any money on the table. But bankers on the wealth-management side of the underwriters are sure to be unhappy. Plus, the company’s tepid premiere is killing the performance of tech stocks across the board.
Basically, what we hear is that the underwriters including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, got too pushy in the final days before the IPO about pricing. Earlier this month, the company was slated to open at a $28 to 35 price range, but that range was pushed up to $34 to 38 a share. Then Facebook priced at the very high end at $38 last night.
posted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterday -
18 May ' 19:31
posted 21 mins agoClarityRay Battles Ad Blockers With $500K In Funding
Some of you are probably reading this post with ad blocker right now — and to be honest, I don’t blame you. Sure, there’s the occasional amusing or genuinely useful ad, but not terribly often, so why not install a plugin and avoid the whole mess? Of course, those ads make money, so if ad blockers become widespread enough, it could be a real problem for online publishers (who have enough problems already).
Israeli startup ClarityRay says it’s not something looming in the misty future — it’s happening now, and it’s only going to get worse.
Study: Twitter Sentiment Mirrored Facebook’s Stock Price Today
Facebook’s IPO was obviously the single most discussed topic on Twitter today. The good folks over at social media data platform DataSift monitored what Twitter users were saying about the IPO throughout the day and came up with some interesting conclusions. Turns out, the ups and down of how Twitter’s users felt about the stock pretty much mirrored the price of Facebook’s stock as the day progressed.
Facebook Reveals How Much Stock Each Bank Got, Morgan Stanley Nabbed $6 Billion Worth
Just after the markets closed on its first day of public trading, Facebook amended its S-1 with a complete prospectus detailing how much stock each underwriter got to sell. Morgan Stanley, the lead-left bank, received 162.1 million shares ($6.15 billion worth) followed by J.P. Morgan with 84.8 million ($3.22 billion), and Goldman Sachs pulled down 63.1 million shares ($2.4 billion).
David Kirkpatrick On What The ‘Facebook Effect’ Could Be Post-IPO [TCTV]
Mark Zuckerberg’s remote ringing of the opening bell and Facebook’s initial stock trades were a bit anti-climactic in person at the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York City, as we’ve written — NASDAQ is a digital exchange after all, so there’s not too much to see visually.
But being there was still a great opportunity to talk all things Facebook with David Kirkpatrick, the NYC-based founder of Techonomy, Fortune Magazine alum, and best-selling author of the book “The Facebook Effect — The Inside Story Of The Company That Is Connecting The World.” So we were happy to have Kirkpatrick join TechCrunch TV for an interview on the floor of the NASDAQ Marketsite.
posted 5 hours agoGameStop To Sell SIM Cards
GameStop is hurting. Same store sales fell 5%-11% and revenue was down 17% to $2 billion. Profit fell to $72.5 million. Arguably, those are still huge numbers and presumably a new console refresh should push the company out of the doldrums. But what the company has just launched – a new MVNO called GameStop Mobile – is almost inexplicable.
GameStop Mobile is, in short, an unlimited data and voice offering for $55 a month (down to $20 a month for pay-as-you-go plans.) Gamestop is just selling SIM cards and service and is running on AT&T’s network with some notable dead spots.
posted 6 hours agoFacebook’s Acquisition of Karma Brings Mobile Commerce, App Monetization Prowess
Facebook has just acquired mobile commerce startup Karma, which makes apps for gifting friends and family. The terms of the deal are undisclosed but 16 employees of the startup will be joining Facebook. The purchase will help Facebook build up monetization prowess on mobile platforms — an area that it had said it’s admittedly weak in. The price was not disclosed.
With the deal, Facebook gets two extremely experienced leaders in building and monetizing mobile apps. Karma’s chief executive Lee Linden and its co-founder Ben Lewis were behind Tapjoy, a company that became a huge force in distributing and making money from mobile games. Both he and Lewis were product managers at Google and Microsoft. Linden and Lewis have known each other since they were kids and have been building companies together for a couple years.
posted 6 hours agoBankers Got Too Aggressive With Pricing Facebook As They Struggled To Keep Shares Above $38
The underwriters of Facebook’s $16 billion debut on NASDAQ fought to the finish to keep the company’s shares above last night’s final price of $38 a share. Shares closed at $38.23 today. Sources tell us that the syndicate of banks underwriting the deal have been putting in buy orders to keep its price afloat. It’s not necessarily a bad outcome for Facebook as the company didn’t leave any money on the table, but bankers are sure to be unhappy. Plus, the company’s tepid premiere is killing the performance of tech stocks across the board.
Basically, what we hear is that the underwriters including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, just got too aggressive in the final days before the IPO about pricing. Earlier this month, the company was slated to open at a $28 to 35 price range, but that range was pushed up to $34 to 38 a share. Then Facebook priced at the very high end at $38 last night.
“The only thing keeping it at $38 are support mechanisms,” a source tells us. “There just wasn’t the institutional investor demand that people thought there would be.” They added that about 20 percent of buying orders seem to be coming from retail investors (e.g. regular people), which is “unprecedented.”
posted 8 hours agoFacebook IPO Day: The Scene At NASDAQ in NYC’s Times Square [TCTV]
In case there was any confusion after Facebook’s eight years in business and its recent geographic expansions, it was cleared up today: Facebook’s home and heart lies in Silicon Valley.
TechCrunch TV saw that first-hand this morning at NASDAQ’s Marketsite in New York City’s Times Square. We were on hand there for the ringing of the NASDAQ opening bell, but as expected, Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took advantage of the option to ring it remotely from his company’s Menlo Park, California headquarters.
posted 8 hours agoTC/Gadgets Webcast: The Avengers, Nerf, And Kickstarter Tips
Is The Avengers worth your money? Do the disc-blasting Nerf guns leave a welt? How do you pull a Pebble and rein in $3 million on Kickstarter?
In this week’s TC/Gadgets webcast, we answer all this and more.
Ben Chiang, Contributorposted 8 hours agoChina’s Tencent To Restructure Into Six Groups, Here’s Why
China’s Internet juggernaut Tencent announced today that it would undergo a restructuring of its business units into six groups. Ren Yuxin was also named as the new chief operating officer and will head up the media and social-networking groups.
The six groups include:
posted 8 hours agoMicrosoft Announces Its Back-To-School Promotion: Buy A PC, Get A Free Xbox
Microsoft, just like Apple, usually runs a major back-to-school promotion every summer that is meant to give students (and their parents) some extra incentives to buy a new computer. The company’s just-announced back-to-school deal for the U.S. and Canada is pretty much the same as last year’s. A year ago, Microsoft gave students who bought a new PC and Xbox 360 and this year it’s doing exactly the same.
posted 8 hours agoFrom A Hackathon Win To A 650K Round And 10,000 Users, Docracy Tells All
The tale of Docracy’s year-long journey is a fun one. When Matt Hall and his partner John Watkinson first went into the Hackathon last year, the only goal was to get a prototype working for an idea they had, a GitHub for legal documents. Sure, a win would’ve been nice, but the main goal was to push out a prototype they could pitch to investors (instead of just an idea) with a firm deadline hanging over their shoulders.
But alas, Docracy took home the top prize despite the fact that they were the first of more than 100 presentations that day. And after last year’s Disrupt NYC (tickets to this year’s Disrupt here), the story only gets better.
posted 9 hours agoThe President’s Tech Gurus Want A Few Good Men And Women At TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Next Week
President’s technology gurus, US CTO Todd Park and CIO Steven VanRoekel, will be looking for savvy innovators to work with at next week’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York (tickets here). Park and VanRoekel will be announcing some new technology initiatives at their Disrupt Panel. We understand that they’ll be looking for both startup partners and individuals to work with the White House, and are eager to meet participants at Disrupt, who may be the fit that they’re looking for.
posted 9 hours ago$16B Should Cover It: Here’s The $15B Facebook Privacy Class Action Suit, And Facebook’s Response
Facebook, which has now listed on NASDAQ, is set to make $16 billion if its share holds at the $38 price that it set yesterday — more if it ends higher. Here’s a coincidence: that’s just north of the total amount in damages, $15 billion, that a new class-action case is seeking against the social network over privacy invasion.
Filed in U.S. Federal Court in San Jose, California, the case (embedded below) combines 21 separate cases that have been filed in different courts in the U.S. in 2011 and 2012 — as the plaintiffs look for strength in numbers. All of the cases are connected to “Internet tracking,” or how Facebook tracks users when they are browsing the wider web outside of Facebook’s own pages, even after they have logged out of Facebook.
Facebook has already responded to the case with a flat statement of denial of guilt. “We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch.
posted 9 hours agoZuckerberg Gets His Own Bizarre Animated News Video On IPO Day
If only Facebook IPO day were a little less of a snoozefest than it is now. If only it had Zuckerberg impaling investors while riding a bull rampaging through a city. Or an elevator to space. Or Zuckerberg bouncing Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar off a giant scale. But sadly, our surrealist dreams will never be realized.
We will just have to settle for the ho-hum performance of Facebook’s shares so far. In the meantime, you can watch this re-enactment from NMA TV or Next Media Animation, that Taiwanese animation subsidiary that riffs off current events with 3D animated videos that look like what the lovechild of Salvador Dali and Reddit would make. Oh, and did we mention that their parent company invests in tech startups too?
posted 9 hours agoThe Underwhelming Scene Outside Facebook HQ
Well, they warned us.
Yesterday, Facebook PR was telling reporters that when the company went public this morning, there wouldn’t be much to see at the Menlo Park headquarters. Nonetheless, I made the drive down from San Francisco, and I wasn’t alone. When I arrived at around 6:30am Pacific, the small parking lot set aside for reporters and news vans was already full. Facebook provided coffee and breakfast, as well as a portable bathroom.
posted 10 hours agoZuckerberg Receives Hoodie, Says “Our Mission Isn’t To Be A Public Company” In Pre-IPO Remarks
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg received a commemorative hoodie from the NASDAQ CEO Bob Greifeld and thanked his site’s users in opening remarks recorded before he rang the NASDAQ opening bell this morning.
In his short speech which you can watch below, Zuckerberg said:
“I just want to say a few things, and then we’ll ring this bell and we’ll get back to work. Right now this all seems like a big deal. Going public is an important milestone in our history. But here’s the thing: our mission isn’t to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. In the past eight years, all of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You’ve done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of and I can’t wait to see what you’re all going to do going forward.
So on this special day, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I just want to say to all the people out there who use Facebook and our products, thank you. So let’s do this! [Rings bell] This is an awesome moment. Remember, stay focused and keep shipping” Watch the video here…
posted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoQuipper Raises $3.6M For Its Fun Take On E-Learning
posted 10 hours ago- IPOs
Accelerated Orthopedic Technologies — Received $150k in Seed funding from Elm Street Ventures5.19.2012Facebook — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:FB.Accelerated Orthopedic Technologies — Received $150k in Seed funding from Elm Street VenturesEquivalent DATA — Received Unattributed funding from Trinity Hunt PartnersStreamBase Systems — Received $1.5M in Debt funding from Horizon Technology Finance Management LLC5.18.2012Facebook — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:FB.5.18.20125.19.20125.19.20125.19.20125.19.20125.19.2012 -
18 May ' 09:47
posted 5 mins agoZuckerberg Says “Our Mission Isn’t To Be A Public Company” In Pre-IPO Opening Remarks
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg received a hoodie from the NASDAQ CEO and thanked his site’s users in opening remarks recorded before he rang the NASDAQ opening bell this morning.
In his short speech that just aired on Bloomberg TV Zuckerberg said, “I know this may seem like a big deal. But here’s the thing: our mission isn’t to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. All of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You’ve done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of and I can’t wait to see what you’re going to be doing as we go forward. So on this special day, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I just want to say to all the people out there who use our product, thank you.”
posted 10 mins agocomScore: 1 In 5 Videos Viewed Online Last Month Was An Ad
According to online analytics company comScore, Americans watched 37 billion online videos on sites like YouTube, Yahoo and Facebook in April. In total, 181 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 1,307 minutes of online videos last month. Those numbers are virtually unchanged from last month, but one area that has seen pretty spectacular growth over the last few month is online video advertising. According to comScore, U.S. Internet users watched almost 9.5 billion video ads last month. That’s about 60 ads per viewer. What makes this number even more astonishing is that it was only in March of this year that the number of video ads topped 8 billion for the first time.
posted 45 mins agoQuipper Raises $3.6m For Its Fun Take On E-Learning
There are lots of different approaches to the amorphous market of ‘e-learning’ but only a handful ever feel much like fun. I think amongst the best of these are sites like MangaHigh which teaches Math, or Moshi Monsters which has subtle learning tasks for kids.
Another which works well is Quipper, which, in a Q&A format, helps people learn things in a sort of game format. Today it’s announced that it has raised $3.6m (£2.3m) of Series A funding led by Globis, the Japanese VC. The round has been two other investors: Atomico, the London-based VC firm led by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström and Benesse, a major Japanese education and publishing company.
posted 47 mins agoTracks Releases Most Ambitious Update Yet: Custom Camera, New Filters, And Real-Time Video
How timely. After launching a year ago at Disrupt NYC 2011, Tracks is today releasing one of its biggest updates to date. The service is much like Color, but without the creepy factor as any and all members of a specific photo-sharing group must be invited. I like to think of it as the place where Color and Google+ Circles intersect, but I far prefer Tracks than either of the former.
Thus far Tracks has offered iOS, web- and real-world versions of your tracks (the collection of photos shared with a specific social network, which can be both geo-temporal or last forever). Today, however, the service gets much more beefy, with the ability to shoot and send real-time video and the addition of new filters, Instagram-style. There are now ten filter options on the app, and they’ll all work on both photos and videos.
But that’s not all.
posted 52 mins agoHow Big Is The FB IPO? It’s So Big I Just Hit Inbox Zero
Why is there nothing but Facebook IPO news today, you (Facebook haters) may be asking? Well, outside of the obvious – people are obsessed, this is a historic event, it’s the biggest tech IPO over, etc., etc. – there’s another reason why all the news outlets are publishing Facebook thisFacebook that today It’s because everyone else is holding their news for a later date….the result of which has led to a historic event of my own: inbox zero
So this is what it’s like not being a tech blogger?
posted 55 mins agoZynga’s Share Price Falls Off A Cliff As Facebook IPOs, Down 13.3% Before Trading Halted
Zynga’s share price plummeted 11.4 percent from $8.09 to $7.19 in the eight minutes after Facebook’s IPO went live, and down 13.3 percent since yesterday. Trading has been halted to stem further losses.
While we can’t know the exact reason why this happened, I’d bet that investors expected Zynga shares to pop alongside Facebook’s during the IPO. But when they didn’t pop at all and instead stayed flat, those short-term investors sold off the social gaming company’s shares.
Many tech stocks have traded downward following Facebook’s open. Chinese social network Renren, professional network LinkedIn, and some other related tech stocks are also down.
posted 1 hour agoNo IPO Pop Here: Facebook Trades Slightly Higher At Around $40
Facebook shares opened at $42.05, a 10.5 percent increase from its final price last night at $38. Shares are actually currently almost flat at $39.16, which is 3.6 percent higher than $38 the price that underwriters settled on last night. While it may not be as juicy a story, it’s a signal that Facebook’s IPO was priced pretty efficiently and that the company didn’t leave too much money on the table.
Right now, retail investors are getting their hands on the shares. The company’s first trade was actually delayed by 30 minutes on NASDAQ as market makers had issues settling on an opening price. They kept delaying the opening in five-minute increments, which isn’t all that uncommon in popular offerings, according to a conversation we had with Bruce Aust, who is NASDAQ’s executive vice president and head of the global corporate client group, earlier today.
posted 1 hour agoFacebook’s Opening Trade Has Been Delayed On NASDAQ
Facebook’s opening trade on NASDAQ has been delayed. We don’t know why, but we’re hearing mixed reports involving both unexpectedly high demand from retail investors and problems with canceling orders. As we explained in a post about 20 minutes ago, the underwriters of the deal are meeting and trying to set an opening price.
But because of unexpected changes in demand, it seems market makers are having issues settling on an opening price. They have the option of delaying the offering in five-minute increments until they can find a final price.
posted 1 hour agoFacebook: What Are The Main Player’s Shares Worth?
Trading has now begun on Facebook after a bit of a hiccup with NASDAQ, and while the numbers are nowhere near the heady heights of $70-$100 that some people were murmuring earlier, the $42.05 opening figure is still 10 percent higher than the $38-per-share price set by Facebook yesterday. At the time of this writing, it is trading a bit lower, at $40.
In Facebook’s S-1, the company listed how many shares main players were set to sell at listing time. Based on a share price of $38, here are how the values are coming out. The first number is the value of the shares they are selling, and the second is the value of their remaining stake in the company:
Need A Little Context On Facebook’s IPO? The Social Network Made More Money Than…
Today’s Facebook IPO is a momentous, historical occasion. It’s set to be the biggest tech IPO ever, and the third largest IPO in U.S. history, second only to Visa and General Motors. The company that was once just a glimmer in the eye of a Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg raised over $16 billion yesterday as shares were gobbled up by hungry investors, and that $38 share price point is expected to increase as the stock starts trading around 11am today.
Do you know how much money that is?
posted 2 hours agoExplainer: What Happens In The 15 Minutes Before Facebook Shares Start Trading
Facebook shares are supposed to go live on the NASDAQ market in about 20 minutes. But what happens in the next crucial 15?
We caught up with NASDAQ’s Bruce Aust, who is the executive vice president and head of the global corporate client group there. After several years of carefully courting the company’s management, NASDAQ beat out rival New York Stock Exchange for Facebook’s hand. NASDAQ is usually is the exchange of choice for most tech companies like Google and Apple, but NYSE has snuck away with a company or two in the last year like LinkedIn.
Companies generally go live after market opening at around 10:30 or 11 a.m. Eastern, he said. About 15 minutes before shares start trading (e.g. right now!), the underwriters of Facebook’s offering like the offering’s lead Morgan Stanley get together and discuss current market orders, he said.
posted 2 hours ago$FBIsBlowingUpOnStockTwits,Too
Another startup cashing in (figuratively speaking) on the FB IPO: StockTwits. Earlier this week, the social network for investors added Facebook to its StockTwits Social Heatmap, a feature on the site that provides a visualization of what the StockTwits some 200,000 investors and traders are talking about. Usually, the heatmap looks looks like a bunch of little squares – the bigger the square means more conversation.
But today, Facebook ($FB) is dominating, even pushing fan favorite $AAPL aside.
posted 3 hours agoKnodes Made A Teaser Trailer For Our Hackathon Tomorrow And It’s Awesome!
The Hackathon is one of the best parts of Disrupt. Granted, it’s not quite as emotional as watching the Battlefield rounds play out, but there’s something sort of inspiring about the idea that you may be building the start of a company during a 24-hour beer/pizza/Red Bull-fest.
Success stories like Group.me and Docracy were born at our Hackathon, but they’d be the first to tell you that none of it is possible without our awesome API sponsors. These include foursquare, The Echo Nest, metaLayer, Twilio, bitly, Tumblr, Spotify, Mobli and more. But one has gone above and beyond when it comes to teasing out the event, with the promise to offer “one thousand dolla dolla bills” to the hacker who makes the best use of their API.
Knodes, who is offering up a context API which maps users’ social graphs, has made a movie-type trailer ahead of the Hackathon and posted it to YouTube.
posted 3 hours agoVideo & Photos: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Rings In The NASDAQ Bell
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg didn’t travel to New York’s Times Square for the company’s big day. He did it unconventionally like you’d expect a hacker would. He opened the bell remotely from the company’s Menlo Park Headquarters after Facebook employees had just finished a long, all-night Hackathon — their 31st. They played midnight hockey and worked on extra projects, as you can see from photos we re-posted here
Just ahead of the 6:30 PST open, the company’s employees got together again in the main headquarters “Hacker Square” in front of a big stage where he rang the bell. Unlike Zynga CEO Mark Pincus in last December’s IPO, Zuckerberg didn’t give any remarks. He was flanked by chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, vice president of product Chris Cox and Elliot Schrage, who is Facebook’s vice president of public policy and communications. A Facebook engineer named David Garcia had hacked the NASDAQ button to auto-post the bell opening to Zuckerberg’s Timeline (and we have the inside scoop on how he did it!)
David Garcia, Contributorposted 3 hours agoHow Facebook Hacked The NASDAQ Button
Editor’s note: Some savvy Facebook engineers rigged the NASDAQ button to automatically post “Mark Zuckerberg has listed a company on NASDAQ – FB” to the CEO’s Timeline as he rung the bell to open the NASDAQ’s day of trading. David Garcia, a senior software engineer at Facebook, explains how they turned the NASDAQ on to Open Graph.
It was a normal Monday. Nothing out of the ordinary other than that Facebook was set to go public at the end of the week. Camera crews were beginning to appear and NASDAQ was coming to campus so we could ring the opening bell together. Other than that, it was like any other Monday.
posted 3 hours agoReady To Talk FB? Social Finance Site TradingView Debuts Real-Time Chat
Social finance site TradingView, which launched in September of last year, is rolling out a new feature just in time for the Facebook IPO (c’mon, you knew there would have to be at least one story about “just in time for the Facebook IPO” today, right?). But anyway, this one seems relevant at least: TradingView is launching interactive real-time chatting on its site, which lets users talk about stocks in a slightly more private forum than Twitter.
posted 3 hours agoCharts: Facebook’s IPO In Historical Context And Its Share Price Over Time
Facebook will be the largest tech IPO in history today as the company and its early shareholders raise $16 billion. There is also an allotment for them to sell up to $2.4 billion more in the next 30 days. We’ve made a couple of charts to show how it compares to other historical IPOs, according to NASDAQ data. Then we also have historical price data from SecondMarket, which is a private secondary market that became popular among former Facebook employees who wanted to offload some shares.
Watch Mark Zuckerberg Ring The NASDAQ Bell Before Facebook’s IPO
You can watch here on TechCrunch or on the NASDAQ website as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made history this morning ringing the bell to open the day’s trading on the NASDAQ from Facebook’s headquarters just before his company’s IPO. The ceremony didn’t include Zuckerberg giving a speech or any remarks. However, he did sign the NASDAQ bell’s touchscreen “To a more open and connected world”. Facebook stock won’t actually begin trading until 8am PST / 11am EST so investors will have a few more hours to salivate.
Employees have been at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park for an all-night hackathon that’s about to culminate with Zuck’s bell-ringing ceremony.
posted 4 hours agoXKCD: Punch Me In The Face If I Use Klout
I don’t understand Klout. I’ve convinced myself that it’s best that way. I just avoid it, really. Grading a person’s social media influence on a scale of 100 seems like something popular girls would do in high school.
Like Alexia said last year, nobody gives a damn about your Klout score. I honestly didn’t give a damn about my Klout score until I heard about the deals with airlines. That said, free perks do not outweigh worrying about a seemingly arbitrary scoring system. Today’s XKCD comic nails it. Please, Internet, if I ever write about Klout in any way, punch me square in the face.
European Activists Could Force Facebook’s New Privacy Changes To A Worldwide Vote
The European activists “europe-v-facebook.org”, led by a group of Austrian students, say that they have reached the 7,000-comment threshold on a Facebook privacy proposal, first raised last week, which would force the company to take the revisions to a worldwide vote. Perhaps not the best timing for Facebook, but great timing for those looking for more profile on the whole issue of privacy and how it is approached by Facebook.
Specifically, if you go to Facebook’s English-language Data Use Policy page where it has detailed the new proposals, there are now over 9,000 comments on the post. The proposal, you can see, has some XXX’s at the top: that’s because it is due to close this evening, at 5pm Pacific time (yes, more business as usual at Facebook, despite the fact that it also happens to be going through the biggest IPO ever in tech history).
Cloudwords — Received Series B funding from Storm VenturesMuleSoft — Received $15M in Series D funding5.18.20125.18.2012 -
17 May ' 23:32
posted 58 mins agoAnd The First Facebook IPO Hackathon Photos Roll In
Hundreds of Facebook employees congregated at ‘Hacker Square’ at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters this evening ahead of the company’s insanely-hyped initial public offering. Now, some of the first photos are starting to trickle in. There was a standing ovation for chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who gave a talk before several long-time engineers bounced in while wearing capes or bringing boomboxes.
Tonight Facebook is having its 31st Hackathon to celebrate the IPO. Hackathons are a company tradition. They’re a place where engineers and other non-technical employees get to stay out all night building concepts into real products that sometimes eventually get shipped. Some of the big products that have come out of earlier Hackathons include Facebook chat and an early version of Timeline.
Nir Eyal, ContributorSpotting The Next Facebook: Why Emotions Are Big Business
Tomorrow Facebook will sell shares in one of the biggest tech IPOs in history. New investors will gobble up the stock to get a piece of the global phenomenon famously started in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room in 2004. But while owning the stock will have quantifiable value when it trades on the open market, few buyers will be able to say truthfully that they understood the value of the company just a few years ago.
Ask yourself candidly, what did you think of Facebook the first time you landed on its homepage? Where you blown away? Could you see how it would fill a gaping need in the lives of nearly a billion people? If you’re honest with yourself, and you’re not Peter Thiel, your answer is probably, “No, not really.”
Facebook Keeps Shipping. Now You Can Silence Spammy Apps And More With New Notification Controls
If there’s something on Facebook that won’t stop pinging you with Notifications, tell it to shut up instantly with Facebook’s new granular, in-line notification controls. Hover over an alert in the Facebook.com homepage’s globe icon drop-down and click the ‘x’ for the option to turn off notifications from that app, group, event, or post you commented on. The whole drop-down has a slick new look, too
Previously you had to dig your way to the dedicated Notifications Settings pageto make these changes, and there was no way to turn off a specific source of alerts — you had to silence all your events or all your posts. Facebook has confirmed with me that most of the changes to notifications will be rolled out to everyone by tonight, except for app alert controls which are still in testing.
As we accumulate more friends and apps, Facebook’s notifications can turn from delightful pointers to annoying distractions that interrupt our lives. These new controls mean if you want a more zen Facebook experience, you can make it so.
posted 5 hours agoKleiner Perkins Closes On $525 Million For Its 15th Venture Fund, ‘KPCB 15′
Silicon Valley venture capital stalwart Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers is announcing this evening that it has closed on a $525 million round for its fifteenth venture fund, dubbed ‘KPCB 15.’ The fund will be focused on making early-stage investments in digital, green tech, and health sciences startups.
posted 5 hours agoFacebook’s $38 Share Price Makes Instagram Deal Worth Nearly $1.2 Billion
Facebook’s $38 share price would make its deal to buy Instagram worth nearly $1.2 billion, up from the roughly $1 billion price the company announced in April
That’s a nice little bump but the deal hasn’t gone through given regulatory reviews. On top of that, we don’t know the restrictions on the shares like when they vest or if they’re subject to lock-up period. When Facebook agreed to buy Instagram, it said it would pay with $300 million in cash and 22,999,412 shares of stock. That stock is now worth nearly $874 million, creating a $1.17 billion price tag.
posted 5 hours agoGasp! Thanks To These Startups, Teachers Are Making Money On The Web
On the whole, teacher compensation in the U.S. is embarrassing. To pick on marketers, some might see the fact that the average marketing manager makes twice the average salary of just about every type of teacher as just a wee bit backwards.
Luckily, there are a number of startups that are starting to change that, thanks to the Web and the growing popularity of open, online educational platforms. For example, Udemy, a web platform that allows anyone to host and take online classes, this morning announced that its top ten instructors earned a combined $1.6 million over the last 12 months.
posted 6 hours agoPulse Is Getting Ready To Make Money, Looks To Hire Its First Sales Executive
Pulse, the popular free mobile news reader for iPhone, iPad and Android, could soon get ads. Until now, Pulse, which launched its first app in May 2010, was ad free and the company focused more on user acquisition than monetizing its service. A new job posting on Pulse’s site, however, clearly spells out the company’s plans to start making money in the near future. The company is currently looking for its first sales executive and says that it is “building innovative and disruptive ways of empowering brands to share their content and tell their story in a way that’s natural and native to Pulse.”
posted 6 hours agoHey Bike Owners: Spinlister Can Make You Up To $100 A Week
It’s been about a month and a half since peer-to-peer bike rental service launched in San Francisco and New York. Since then, the New York-based startup has been busy trying to attract bike owners to list their bikes and improve its inventory, while also trying to improve the overall experience of using its site.
Despite only being available in two cities and for six weeks, the startup has already attracted a fair amount of interest from listers and renters. It has an inventory of about 400 from bikes from individuals, and more than 2,000 from bike rental shops listed. And it’s seen rental interest from all over the world, with renters from six of the seven continents. (Antarctica is the only holdout.)
Peter Vogel, Contributorposted 7 hours agoFacebook Credits About to Grow Up…. Fast
Although introduced in 2009, we’ve only seen glimpses of what Facebook Credits will become when it grows up, and Facebook is about to kick off the training wheels.
So far, Facebook has done little to promote the virtual currency of Facebook Credits and it’s been used almost entirely in social gaming. But even with this limited exposure and promotion, Facebook Credits’ fees already represents $557 Million in revenue or 15 percent of Facebook’s entire 2011 revenue. Even more remarkable is that less than two percent of Facebook users bought virtual goods with Facebook Credits in 2011, yet it still represented 15 percent of Facebook’s revenue, primarily from just one vertical – social gaming. One vertical and two percent of members represented 15 percent of Facebook’s 2011 revenue!
posted 9 hours agoFastCustomer Unleashes Telephone Call Concierge Service
“People are sick of shitty customer service,” said FastCustomer co-founder, Stephanie Hay. And she and her team aim to do something about it.
Their first product, for the iPhone, Android, and other platforms, allowed you to search for a customer service number – say Adam & Eve – and press a button. The program waits on hold for you and then calls you on your phone immediately upon connecting. The company saw 100,000 downloads and estimates that they saved people 1 million minutes of hold time.
They’ve just launched a new telephone concierge service, 1855-DONT-HOLD (855-366-8465), that allows you to call in and perform the same operation. In short, this thing stays on hold for you. The whole process usually takes less than an hour.
posted 9 hours agoHow High Will Facebook Stock Go Tomorrow? Place Your Bet At FacebookIPODayClosingPrice.com
Angel investor and all-around web magnate Chris Sacca wrote a quick tweet early yesterday about how it’d be cool if there was a website where people could predict where Facebook’s stock will end up at the end of its first day as a publicly traded company.
Well, ask and ye shall receive.
A programmer named James Proudanswered the call, hacking together FacebookIPODayClosingPrice.com, a fun little website that keeps a running tally of people’s bets on where Facebook’s stock will close on IPO day.
posted 9 hours agoTwitter Wants An Interest Graph: Now Tracking Your Browsing To Make Follow Suggestions
Twitter does a lot of things right, but it still hasn’t solved the problem of turning its noise into signal. After joining Twitter, it can take a lot of following and unfollowing scores of accounts before you’ve curated a stream that makes sense for you. With its platform growing fast, Twitter is looking to make the onboarding process a little easier (and more personalized) for new users, which is why it announced today via its blog that it will begin serving users tailored suggestions of who they should follow.
posted 10 hours agoVerizon: If You Want To Keep Your Unlimited Data, Pay Full Price For Your Next Smartphone
Verizon CFO Fran Shammo ruffled a few feathers yesterday when he mentioned at an investor conference that every one of their customers would be on one of the carrier’s new data share plans
In an effort to clarify his meaning, Verizon sent a statement to a handful of news outlets today that shines a bit more light on how they plan to make this situation work.
posted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 11 hours agoposted 11 hours agoposted 11 hours agoit will need bold new revenue streams. An offsite ad network, big glossy news feed ads, and payments for physical goods are a few ways it could boost its average revenue per user far beyond the
posted 11 hours agoJamHub — Received $1.1M in Series A funding from LaunchPad Venture GroupCentral Texas Angel NetworkBoynton Angels, Maine Angels, Angel Investor ForumNortheast Angels5.18.2012JamHub — Received $1.1M in Series A funding from LaunchPad Venture Group, Central Texas Angel Network, Boynton Angels, Maine Angels, Angel Investor Forum, and Northeast AngelsTiger Pistol — Received $1M in Angel funding from David SolomonSingle Digits — Received $10M in Unattributed fundingSerious Parody — Received £1M in Unattributed funding5.18.20125.18.20125.18.20125.18.20125.18.20125.18.2012 -
17 May ' 13:55
posted 11 mins agoSalesforce.com: Q1 Net Loss Of $19.5M On Sales Of $695M. Benioff Says It’ll Have Its First $3B Year FY2013
The ongoing interest and use of cloud-based services has brought a generally good set of results to one of the leaders in the enterprise software-as-a-service business. Salesforce.comreleased Q1 earnings just now and in a quarter that is traditionally slower for the company, it swung to a net loss of $19.5 million, compared to a net profit of $530 million a year ago. Nevertheless, total revenues for the quarter were $695 million and earnings per share of $0.37 — beating estimates from analysts as polled by First Call, who expected adjusted EPS of $0.34 and $678.21 million for revenue. The figures were also better than Saleforce’s own guidance of $0.33-$0.34 for the EPS and revenue of $673 million – $678 million.
The sales were an increase of 38 percent on revenues for the same period a year ago, and Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com, says that the company is on track for its first $3 billion year; last year the company broke new ground with $2 billion in sales.
posted 11 mins agoVizibility Launches Its NFC-Enabled Business Cards
Love’em or hate’em, despite the best efforts of Bump and others, traditional business cards aren’t going away anytime soon. At least, though, some companies are trying to bridge the gap between paper cards and efforts like Bump. New York-based Vizibility first announced its NFC-enabled businesses cards during SXSW earlier this year. Now, the online identity management platform for professionals, is ready to take this project out of beta and is making it widely available as a standard feature for its paying subscribers or for a one-time fee of $15 for users with free accounts.
Josh Constine and Kim-Mai Cutlerposted 40 mins agoFacebook Will Have The Biggest Tech IPO Ever, Raising $16 Billion With $38 Share Price
Facebook shares will start trading at $38 tomorrow, the company confirmed in a release, giving it a valuation of $104.12 billion. Facebook and its early shareholders will raise just over $16 billion in tomorrow’s much anticipated IPO.
At a $104 billion valuation, Facebook is worth more than any other tech IPO candidate at the time of its offering. It also perfectly matches what Facebook shares have been trading at in secondary markets over the last several months. Google was worth $23 billion at the time of its very unusual Dutch auction IPO back in 2004. As of tomorrow Facebook will be worth about half of what Google is worth now.
posted 54 mins agoWe Talk To Two Exciting New NYC Startups: Fancy Hands And Stamped [TCTV]
Last night, Time Inc. threw a pretty badass party in Manhattan to celebrate “Ten NYC Startups To Watch.” Among the ten were Fancy Hands, a site that offers up a personal assistant for every and any need you might have, and Stamped, a social network that lets you put your stamp of approval on the things you like.
We pulled aside founders of both companies to find out a little more about them, their business models, and why they think they deserve a spot on Time Inc.’s list.
posted 1 hour agoFreshdesk Launches $10M “Future Fund” To Bring Free Help Desk Support To 500+ Startups
Freshdesk, the makers of cloud-based help desk software that allows companies to support their customers through email, phone, website, Facebook and Twitter, are on a mission to compete with the big boys of the space, like Zendesk and Salesforce’s Desk.com. Though it believes that the biggest market opportunity down the road will be in offering a unique brand of cloud-based customer support to the enterprise, Freshdesk wants to entice (and give back to) the little guys as well.
That’s why the startup is today announcing the first phase of its “Future Fund,” which will provide customer support services to 501 startups and early-stage businesses through $10 million-worth of services which includes free support for one year. Any startup with less than $1 million in annual revenue qualifies, but to get thing started, Freshdesk has teamed up with incubators and angel funds, like YouWeb, Tandem Entrepreneurs, Internet India Fund, 500 Startups, and Proudly Made.
posted 2 hours agoThe Google AdSense Killer And 3 Other Ways Facebook Could Make A Lot More Money
Tiny sidebar and news feed ads aren’t going to cut it. If Facebook wants to live up to a $104 billion valuation it will need bold new revenue streams. An offsite ad network, big glossy news feed ads, or and payments for physical goods are a few ways it could boost its average revenue per user far beyond the puny $4.34 a year it earns today.
Facebook has a tough decision to make now that’s going public. It will have to strike a new balance between the good of its users, advertisers, app developers, and investors. If it refuses to explore new business models, its share price could sink. But if it strays too far in favor of making money, Facebook could lose its addictiveness and the faith of its users. Here’s the four aces Mark Zuckerberg could have up his sleeve.
posted 2 hours agoHP’s Stock Price Is Climbing Amid Massive Layoff Rumors
HP is reportedly going to be announcing massive layoffs next Wednesday. Conflicting reports state somewhere between 25K30K jobs, between 7% and 8% of HP’s global workforce, could be eliminated in an effort to absorb losses from decreasing demand for the company’s products and services. The cuts could happen over the next year, rather than a mass layoff, according to AllThingsD who also state that the total number is still undecided.
Wall Street is reacting positively to the news. HP’s stock price dropped shortly after the news but quickly recovered and started climbing with word of the restructuring. During the writing of this post, the stock price dropped slightly but is still up for the day.
posted 2 hours agoEveryme Adds Android, A Web App, and Instagram Integration
Everyme, the Y Combinator-backed mobile startup that helps users create groups for private sharing, is launching a whole bunch of new stuff today.
For starters, it’s releasing apps for both Android and the Web. Co-founder Vibhu Norby says both products have the same features as the iPhone app. On the Android side, Norby says “worked really hard” to create an app that was designed for the platform, rather than just porting over the iPhone app.
Semil Shah, Contributorposted 2 hours ago“In the Studio,” CRV’s George Zachary Discusses Bubbles on the Eve of Facebook’s IPO
“In the Studio” hosts a Silicon Valley technology veteran this week, someone who has been around tech since 1977, in venture since 1995, an early investor in Twitter, Yammer, and Millennial Media, a former executive in the gaming console industry, and while in college, took an interest in economics where his thesis advisor just happened to be Nobel Laureate Franco Modigliani
It’s become fashionable for certain breeds of celebrity tech pundits to sound the alarm bell for their audiences about the impending bubble we are in, or have been in, or will be in. It all reminds me of one of Gordon Gecko’s lines in Wall Street II, “like a rooster taking credit for the dawn.” Economic bubbles come and go, they are natural cycles that humans have lived through for centuries. A more interesting question to ask is: What phase are we in relative to the current economic cycle? This is exactly what George Zachary of Charles River Ventures dissects in this fascinating conversation.
posted 2 hours agoComcast Kills Its 250GB Data Cap, Is Testing More Flexible Data Plans
Comcast announced today that it is doing away with its 250 GB data cap, and will be moving to test out new plans will charge customers based on usage, rather than cutting them off.
Since 2008, Comcast has had a data usage cap of 250GB for all its broadband plans. At that time, the cap was mainly meant to deter users from abusing the network, largely by downloading or distributing pirated video files. But times have changed, streaming media is now a thing, and services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and TV Everywhere services like Xfinity TV and HBO Go are using up massive amounts of data for some customers.
posted 2 hours agoBalloonduck: Where Pinterest Meets Twitter To Sate Your Curiosity
We first wrote about Balloonduck back in March. At the time, the social network was accepting invite requests prior to a full launch, so as to avoid empty room syndrome. But today is the big day: Balloonduck has hit 1,500 invite requests and is now officially live.
If you perchance haven’t heard about the service, it’s basically a Pinterest-style Twitter, but with questions being the main content. Users can post a question about anything really — it can extend as far as curiosity will allow — along with a picture, at which point other users can perhaps share their expertise with an answer.
posted 3 hours agoGetaround Wants To Get You To TechCrunch Disrupt
Getaround was the big winner at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2011. Since then, the startup has continued to lead and dominate the car sharing space. This year, Getaround will be back in New York to help us hand off the massive Disrupt Cup to another deserving company yet to be discovered. Not only will they be there during the conference, but Getaround is co-hosting an awesome after party with us on Monday, May 21st. You need to come.
Next Monday night, both Getaround and TC will be at Greenhouse in New York City, a nightclub Getaround calls “as green as the Getaround service.” Greenhouse has plants on the walls and inside the tables, fancy lights everywhere, and two floors of party space. There will be famous DJs sponsored by Future.FM, a signature Getaround cocktail and open bar, an interactive photobooth, real-time video updates provided by Tout, fun door prizes and tons of tech VIPs.
posted 3 hours agoWeotta Go: An iPhone App That Suggests Activities For Right Now
Here’s an iPhone app for those moments when you’re wondering, “Okay, I’ve got some free time right now — what should I do?”
Weotta Go is actually the latest product from Weotta, a startup that launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last year. At the time, the company had built a website that helped people make plans, such as figuring out where to eat dinner tonight. The iPhone app, on the other hand, is more focused on spontaneity — say you’re at work and want to find somewhere nearby to grab a sandwich, or you’ve just met up with some friends and don’t know where to head next.
posted 3 hours agoSchumer And Casey’s Ex-PATRIOT Act: Details Of How They Plan To Get Saverin’s $67M And More
Charles Schumer and Bob Casey, the two U.S. Senators behind the Ex-PATRIOT act — a proposal to go after early Facebook backer Eduardo Saverin and others like him that have renounced U.S. citizenship and are getting out of paying capital gains tax on stock windfalls — have now revealed the details of their plan. We first wrote about it earlier today when the offices of the two senators first announced their intentions.
It’s pretty big: any ex-pat with either a net worth of over $2 million, or an average income tax liability of at least $148,000 over the last five years, “will be presumed to have renounced their citizenship for tax avoidance purposes.” The ex-pat will have to demonstrate to the IRS that this is not the case if it is not. If there is a “legitimate reason” for that person living outside the U.S. no penalties will apply. But if the IRS finds that someone gave up their passport for tax purposes, they will impose a tax on that individual’s investment gains “no matter where he or she resides.”
posted 4 hours agoPostmates Debuts ‘Get It Now’ iPhone App To Bring On-Demand Couriers To All Of SF
Postmates, the urban logistics startup that launched its flagship business-to-business courier system back in December, just launched the public version of its first consumer-facing app, “Get It Now.” The app, which is currently available on the iPhone and active only in the San Francisco Bay Area, lets users get anything in San Francisco delivered to them in under an hour.
posted 4 hours agoTime Warner Cable Customers Now Get HBO Go On Xbox, Roku & Samsung TVs
Time Warner Cable is on a roll with this whole TV Everywhere thing. Just a day after adding Viacom stations to its live streaming iPad app, the cable provider has announced support for HBO Go on the Xbox, Roku streaming boxes, and Samsung connected TVs.
It’s been a long time coming: Time Warner Cable was one of the last holdouts to even hook up with HBO Go, the on-demand video service which gives subscribers access to every piece of HBO original programming ever… But it’s catching up fast.
posted 4 hours agoEnough With Social Stalking: Business-Focused INTRO App Will Let Members Network More Privately
INTRO, the ambient location app whose claim-to-fame is how it’s angling to become the “LinkedIn” of the social/local people-stalking space, is now increasing its business-oriented focus. With the iOS app‘s most recent update, due to roll out any day (minute?) now, INTRO is adding features that will allow members of groups to connect with each other, even going so far as to shut off networking with people outside of their preferred groups.
The company, which was already focused on professional (not social) networking, is integrating Meetup, Eventbrite, and LinkedIn groups for improved matching in the new app, as well as support for private groups, like membership clubs and entrepreneur networks, for example.
posted 4 hours agoWhen Will Fashion Tech Just Be Fashion?
Speaking at Peter Thiel’s class at Stanford last week, investor and entrepreneur Mark Andreessen called out retail as a “particularly promising” vertical for tech innovation.
We’re seeing and will continue to get e-commerce 2.0, that is, e-commerce that’s not just for nerds. The 1.0 was search driven. You go to Amazon or eBay, search for a thing, and buy it. That works great if you’re shopping for particular stuff.
The 2.0 model involves a deeper understanding of consumer behavior. These are companies like Warby Parker and Airbnb. It’s happening vertical by vertical. And it’s likely to keep happening throughout the retail world because retail is really bad to start with. There are very high fixed costs of having stores and inventory. Margins are very small to begin with. If you take away just 5 or 10%, things collapse.”
posted 4 hours agoHacker High School, GameDesk, Aims To Create A Generation of Makers
Facebook created a $100 billion empire on top of a “hacker culture,” a workplace ethos that encourages wild experimentation and collaborative fun. Now, AT&T is betting $3.8 million that one school, GameDesk, can prepare students for the controlled chaos of the modern workplace.
At GameDesk, subjects, from English to Algebra, are an interdisciplinary investigation into real world problems and the curriculum employs the creation of video games, movies, and art, to understand them better. For instance, CEO, Lucien Vattel, explains to TechCrunch, in order to recreate one’s own version of Angry Birds, students must model the mathematical principal of an arc, the parabola. Armed with a heavy dose of curiosity, and the skills to physically create new products, graduates will be better prepared for the modern workforce.
posted 4 hours agoBing Launches Its Paid Search API, But Will Still Offer A Free Tier
Just about a month ago, Microsoft that it would end free access to its Bing Search API and start charging a minimum of $40 per month for the service. Today, the company is officially launching the Bing Search API on its Windows Azure Marketplace, but unlike its previous announcement, the company has decided to continue to offer a free tier as well. Developers will still be able to make up to 5,000 queries per month for free. This, says the Bing team, will still allow most existing developers to use the service for free.
Gen110 — Received Unattributed funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & ByersGen110 — Received Unattributed funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers5.17.2012NextIO — Received $12.3M in Series F funding5.17.2012Desalitech — Received $6.25M in Unattributed funding from Liberation CapitalPinterest — Received $100M in Unattributed funding from RakutenAndreessen Horowitz, FirstMark CapitalBessemer Venture Partners5.17.20125.17.20125.17.20125.17.20125.17.20125.17.20125.17.2012QuerySurge — Product added to CrunchBase5.14.2012DEC (Distributed Engagement Channel) — Product added to CrunchBase5.14.2012Brand Monitor — Product added to CrunchBase5.14.2012Dropmysite — Product added to CrunchBase5.14.2012Dropmyemail — Product added to CrunchBase5.14.2012 -
17 May ' 03:55
posted yesterdayQuora Investor Peter Thiel: “The Samwers Are Never Going To Clone Quora,”
There’s been a lot of armchair valuation punditry across the Valley this week. As the Facebook IPO looms, our intricately entwined ecosystem of startups and investors seeks to benefit from the domino effect of a population feeling flush with cash. This is the picture that the WSJ painted in its Quora funding announcement yesterday, headline: “Former Facebook Hands Capitalize on Buzz.” Okay, sure, smart people will always adapt to a favorable environment — but the WSJ missed a deeper and more long-term dynamic at play.
posted yesterdayDisney Video Launches In Beta, Bringing Kid-Friendly Clips And Trailers To All Your Devices
There’s a new product that just came out of Disney Labs — a video portal for clips, movie trailers, and even a collection of curated YouTube videos, all designed to be watched online or on any of your mobile devices. The new Disney Video site, located at video.disney.com, combines the best of Disney past and present, with a whole lot of content that might not be found anywhere else.
It’s too early to know too much about the site — we spotted after it was announced on Twitter by Henry Work, Senior Software Engineer for Disney Interactive Labs, and have a request out for more information. But at first glance, it seems like a pretty cool example of what a major media company can do with a huge library of content that it hopes to bring to multiple platforms and devices.
posted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayCLEO Communications — Received $3.5M in Unattributed funding from Peterson Partners5.17.201211.15.201211.15.2012CLEO Communications — Received $3.5M in Unattributed funding from Peterson PartnersSonitus Medical — Received $25M in Series D funding from AbingworthEmme E2MS — Received $2.6M in Unattributed fundingVox Mobile — Received $7.5M in Unattributed funding from Edison Ventures5.17.20125.17.20125.17.20125.17.20125.17.2012- Lionhead listing for ‘MMO-like title for next generation consoles’
- LG’s Optimus LTE2 ships this week in Korea, nails down a few more specs
- Rumor: Mass Effect 3′s next DLC is the Rebellion Multiplayer Expansion
- NTT DoCoMo’s Galaxy S III to ship with 2GB RAM?
- Serious Sam 3: BFE, Serious Sam Double D XXL run screaming to XBLA this fall
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