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29 Oct 2009 06:58
See us at the Audience Conference, Nov 5-6th in New York »
Live CoverageGoogle's Music Onebox Launches, Powered By MySpace And Lala »
Dependency TheoryGoogle Should Make Apple Beg For Maps Navigation »
Developer GarageFacebook Announces New App Policies »on October 29, 2009
We just about PlaySpan’s recent study showing positive growth in the exchange and e-commerce of virtual goods exchange. PlaySpan powers micro-payments across over 1,000 video games and virtual worlds and has virtual goods storefronts on Facebook, MySpace, within games and on its standalone site. Today, PlaySpan is announcing a fairly significant deal with Nickelodeon to power payment services for virtual goods and microtransactions for the Nickelodeon Kids and Family Virtual Worlds Group.
PlaySpan’s technology and services will power Nickelodeon’s virtual worlds’ currency, called NeoCash, across multiple payment providers including credit cards and prepaid cards. Through PlaySpan’s subsidiary PayByCash, Nickelodeon will offer users over 80 global payment methods.
This is a big move for PlaySpan, considering Nickelodeon’s vast reach and popular games, including virtual world NeoPets, which has a user base of 45 million gamers. PlaySpan recently micro-transaction app developer Spare Change, which powered micropayments across 700 social networking apps on Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo. Earlier this year, PlaySpan also made deal to power micropayments on hi5.
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Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape: Google Maps Navigation For Android 2.0
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Google's New Mobile App Cuts GPS Nav Companies At The Knees
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Mike Butcher on October 29, 2009
Amazon is launching “PayPhrase” a simple way to verify your account to speed up purchasing – a great move ahead of the holiday season when even more people than ever will be shopping online.It’s simple stuff. You set up a unique phrase like “Axe Murderer” or “Car Lover” or “Honey I shrunk the kids” and tie it to a 4-digit PIN. This is linked to your Amazon account which, of course, is pre-loaded with your credit card and shipping address.
I do have to wonder what was so hard about entering an email address and password, but clearly Amazon’s psychological research unit thought “Fluffy Bunnies”, or some such, was going to be easier for the average Jane or Joe to remember.
Mike Butcher on October 29, 2009
We’ve been saying for a while that ‘local’ is going to be one of those ‘next big things’, and the win by Red Beacon at TechCrunch 50 has been something of a clarion call for this. Now a new study from TMP Directional Marketing has come out with some interesting data to back this up.The study shows that the web generally, but in particular mobile and social network search, are increasingly factors fueling growth in the overall search market. This grew to 21.9 billion total US searches in June 2009, a year-on-year increase of 31%.
on October 29, 2009
Today, Netlog – the ‘European MySpace’ as they’re often referred to – is hosting a Partner Day at and around their global headquarters in Ghent, Belgium. The most important thing the company will be sharing is a look at their redesigned website, which has been in the works for about a year and is today being rolled out to a number of key countries. I got an exclusive preview of the revamped website from co-founder Toon Coppens, so here’s an impression of what it will look like and where they’re going with the social network.
Netlog currently sees about 250 million visits from 56 million unique visitors on a monthly basis and is handling half a million new sign-ups every week. Its main target has historically been young people (65% of its user base is between 14 and 24 years old) and with the redesign the company is clearly catering to that particular demographic, making the homepage much more visual and far less cluttered. You can see some screenshots of the impending new version below, along with a screen capture of the ‘old’ homepage.
on October 29, 2009
From WikipediaA tributary is a stream or river which flows into a main stem (or parent) river. Facebook wants every site on the web to be a tributary. And it wants to be the main river.Today, amid the hoopla that Facebook was once again making changes to its site which may or may not make things more difficult for developers, something big was largely overlooked. To me, the more interesting thing was the new API Facebook briefly unveiled: The Open Graph API.
To say details are vague at this point is being overly generous. But, the key idea is in place, and was presented today. Basically, the Open Graph API is a way for Facebook to allow other companies, sites, services, etc to interact with Facebook without having to create a dedicated Facebook Page. Big deal, you might think — isn’t that what Connect is? Yes, to an extent, but it would seem that the idea here is to go way past that.
on October 29, 2009
Zong has seen tremendous growth over the past year from when the company debuted its mobile payments service from the TechCrunch50 demo pit. Zong’s model of billing micropayments to your cell phone bill caught our eye and sure enough, less than one year later, the startup is picking up serious traction, including a partnership with Facebook to power the purchase of the social network’s new currency. And in 2009 alone, Zong has processed mobile payments for over 10 million unique users worldwide. Today, Zong is launching a new feature that not only expands its payment services, but could make a lasting impact on the micropayments field.
Zong is launching Zong+, a extension of the mobile payment startup which lets users bill microtransactions to credit, debit and prepaid cards. We have an exclusive demo of Zong+ by the startup’s founder and CEO, David Marcus, below. So in addition to making online purchases through their cell phone bill, Zong customers will also be able to link any type of payment card to their Zong account through a one-time entry process and continue to purchase goods by simply entering their mobile number and confirming the security transaction code sent to their phone.
on October 29, 2009
Initial reports said that hundreds of thousands of people watched YouTube’s Live U2 concert on Sunday night. Then reports yesterday raised the estimate to 2.5 million. Double that, and then double it again. 10 million is the real number of live streams that YouTube did that night, according to VarietyThat’s massive, and it’s obviously the biggest live streaming event YouTube has ever done. But even more impressive is just how smoothly it went. I watched about half of the two and a half hour show, and if there were any interruptions, I didn’t see any. I didn’t even see any hiccups, it was that good. I had the show running full screen on my desktop computer, and it was pretty great picture quality for live streaming video.
Sarah Lacy on October 29, 2009
After a decade in Silicon Valley, I’ve learned there’s a difference between what some VCs say and what they do. For instance, there’s the well-worn phrase that nearly every venture firm utters: “We believe downturns are the best time to invest.” And yet, somehow, the investment numbers always go down in recessions.But University of San Francisco associate professor of entrepreneurship Mark Cannice puts a bit more stock in what VCs say. And to be fair, he’s got some data to prove it. While there are tons of studies that track what VCs did in a quarter, for the last six years Cannice has polled nearly 40 local VCs to ask how confident they feel about the high growth industry in the next six to 18 months. And interestingly, the results almost always presage an upturn or a downturn in exits by a quarter.
USF just released the third quarter numbers and for the first time since Cannice started the survey the measure of confidence was exactly the same as the previous quarter—down to the hundredth decimal place.
I was sorting through my notes and video footage of the Google press event around the launch of Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 and saw this gem. It’s a minute or so of footage of Google CEO Eric Schmidt talking about the potential of today’s mobile platforms when combined with the cloud. His words echo Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Schmidt says that today’s mobile platforms are so powerful that when combined with a robust cloud service they can do “magical things.” And he encourages people not to limit their imaginations when thinking of new applications to serve people.
Inspiring stuff for people out there thinking up the future. Full video is below:
TechCrunch writer traveled down to Los Angeles earlier today to cover the launch of Google Music Onebox. In addition to his live notes from the event and the panel, he managed to point his camera at just about everyone involved in the new service: Google Director Product Management Search R.J. Pittman, MySpace Music President Courtney Holt and LaLa founder Bill Nguyen. Jason also recorded his own first demo of the product, which didn’t go so well based on the mouse and browser setup. Key takeaways – Google will integrate new partners as it makes sense. And while MySpace knew about the negotiations between iLike and Google prior to announcing their acquisition of iLike in August, the deal was far from certain. More on that in a subsequent post.
All are below:
on October 28, 2009
Last March I wrote a preview post showing off Lala’s upcoming iPhone app, which gives users the ability to stream their entire music collection from the cloud, without having to worry about syncing their files. At the time Lala wasn’t ready to give a release date for the app, but our impression was that it was due out fairly soon. Obviously that wasn’t the case. But now we’ve gotten our hands on the latest version of Lala for the iPhone, which was just submitted to Apple for approval. And it’s safe to say that it was worth the wait.For those that haven’t used Lala before, here’s a quick overview of the service: Lala revolves around the concept of the ‘web song’ — you’re allowed to listen to any song you want totally free exactly once. If you like it, you can then pay 10 cents for the right to stream it as many times as you’d like from then on. This means that you can ‘purchase’ and entire album for around a dollar. You can also use Lala’s Music Mover tool to upload your entire library of MP3s to the cloud free of charge. This is all built on top of a very slick interface, but so far it has come with one downside: because all of the songs are streamed, users didn’t have a way to access them when they weren’t at a computer. Lala’s iPhone app changes that.
Erick Schonfeld on October 28, 2009
Netvibes, original widget homepage, is morphing into something much more interesting. The next version of the service, dubbed Wasabi, is a potent stream reader which consolidates news feeds, blogs, Twitter and Facebook streams, email, and much more in an extremely manageable interface. Wasabi will become available early next week in a private beta, but you can start signing up for it now
CEO Freddy Mini demonstrated parts of Wasabi at our first Realtime CrunchUp in July. In addition to the traditional widget view, which breaks up your feeds and applications into a grid of boxes on your Netvibes homepage, Wasabi now also has a “smart reader” view. The smart reader borrows from traditional RSS readers in that all the feeds and widgets you subscribe to are presented together in one column, updated in reverse chronological order.
When it was revealed that Mike Pinkerton, the lead developer for the Mozilla’s Mac-based Camino web browser was moving over to Google to take charge of building Chrome for Mac, there was some concern that Camino would be neglected. Pinkerton assured development on Camino would continue, and sure enough it has. Today brings the first release candidate for Camino 2, the new version of the browser.Camino, though much less prevalent than its Mozilla sibling, Firefox, has a solid following among Mac users who appreciate its speed. It has long been my browser of choice as it’s relatively lightweight and very fast compared to Firefox. And compatibility with various sites seems better than Apple’s own Safari.
on October 28, 2009
It’s been years since I let my subscription to Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery lapse. I could barely afford it and, as those Shriners soon found out, I am not actually a surgeon. However, I do enjoy pouring a glass of Old Granddad, sitting down in my favorite chair, and reading up on Snapping Scapula Syndrome or the Three-Dimensional Kinematics of the Rheumatoid Wrist After Partial Arthrodesis. It does a body – and a soul – good.Thanks to a new online market, DeepDyve, I’m never further than a click away from those relaxing and enlightening scientific papers. The site, launched today, offers full-text search of scientific articles along with 99 cent downloads and a subscription service that allows fans of Clinical Chemistry to read as many stories as they’d like.
on October 28, 2009
Google has just launched into a surprise roundtable at its music event in Hollywood, where a number of top music executives and artists are discussing the news and the music industry. I’m live blogging my notes below (everything paraphrased).Guests: Mos Def Wendy Nussbaum (UMG) Steve Savoca (Domino Recording) Syd Schwartz (EMI)
Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park)
Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic)MS: We used to be called Hybrid Theory. We settled on Lincoln Park, we went online to see if we could get our URL. We were online early on, changed the name of the band to get URL that would give the fans the most direct link to our fans.
Q: Did you ever think international? Do you think about the French version of the Linkin Park website?
MS: We’re in the process of doing that right now to create an easier experience for fans in Asia and Europe..on October 28, 2009
A few weeks back, we shared a video by Swedish Design agency Ocean Observations which demonstrated a rather clever (but arguably useless) concept: Exposé for the iPhone homescreen
We shared that video on a whim, and the resulting conversation and comments were outstanding. As a result, the same design firm has since churned out two more iPhone-related concept videos: Coverflow Multitasking, and Dashboard Widgets. Just like the last time, we’re left wondering: would you use these?
Leena Rao on October 28, 2009
Google has responded to the FCC’s inquiry regarding Google Voice (see document embedded below). There’s been and intense back-and-forth between AT&T, Google, and the FCC over Google Voice’s blocking of some rural telephone numbers. AT&T recently sent a letter to the FCC to undermine Google’s recent argument that it’s blocking exorbitantly expensive calls to some numbers in part because they are associated with sex lines. AT&T’s also thinks that the FCC should consider regulating the search giant on the web as well.
Google response says that its engineers have developed a “tailored solution” for restricting calls to specific numbers engaged in what some have called high-cost “traffic pumping” schemes, like adult chat and “free” conference call lines. Google didn’t want these schemes to exploit the “free nature” of Google voice and over the past few weeks have been trying to locate the source of the problem. Google now says that Google Voice now restricts calls to fewer than 100 specific phone numbers, which Google thinks are part of a traffic pumping scheme.
Jason Kincaid on October 28, 2009
I’m here at Capitol Records in Hollywood, California for a special media event where Lala, MySpace, iLike, Google and others are officially announcing the launch of Google’s Music Onebox — a special new kind of Google search result that will let you instantly stream songs directly from Google’s results page. We first brokethenews of the feature’s impending launch last week, though none of the companies involved have been willing to comment on it until now.Here’s how the new feature will work: Onebox will let users stream songs directly from Google’s search result page, and will also include additional content like tour information and music videos (the actual content shown will vary depending on the partner — more on that later). Enter a query for “Use Somebody”, and you’re going to see a small ‘play’ button in your search result that lets you stream the Kings of Leon song in its entirety, or buy the song. Clicking on the play button will bring up a small browser window that will immediately start streaming your song.
Sarah Lacy on October 28, 2009
Ben Huh is usually holed up in his Seattle-based company Pet Holdings Inc—better known as the company that brings you I Can Has Cheezburger?, the FAIL Blog and nearly thirty other sites that aim to make you laugh for five minutes every day. But he’s down in the Bay Area this week to promote the launch of three new books “How to Take over the World: A LOLCat Guide 2 Winning,” “Graph out Loud,” based on GraphJam and FAIL Nation: A Visual Romp through the World of Epic Fails.” A big party is happening tonight.Annoyingly, Huh is also running around San Francisco this week doing all kinds of media interviews. But here are some things I pried out of him yesterday that you may not know.
MG Siegler on October 28, 2009
We’re here today at the Facebook Developer Garage being held at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. The point of this rather large meetup for developers and the press is to talk about the future of Facebook’s Platform. As such, they’re calling this event the “Roadmap Edition.” As we noted earlier, big changes are expected to be announced today that will alter the way developers interact with Facebook’s Platform; this is D-Day.Below find our live notes (paraphrased):
Mark Zuckerberg: Thanks for coming to our first ever edition of the roadmap developer garage. The Platform and Connect are quick becoming the most important part of our strategy today. We hope what we’re doing will help foster innovation.
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