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| Twitter Unveils A Live-Updating Search Widget
July 23, 2009 at 11:07 pm
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|  Twitter Search is great. Unfortunately, unlike FriendFeed's search, it doesn't update live in real-time. Sure, for some searches, that would be annoying. But it'd be nice to at least have the option to watch a stream of incoming tweets without having to hit the refresh button. And Twitter has just unveiled a way to do that, with a new widget.
The widget, found here, allows you to enter any search query, along with a title and a caption. The widget will then be built next to the input fields so you can see what it looks like. You can also edit its color and dimensions. If you like it, you simply grab the code and put it on a webpage. From there, it will continuously update in real-time with new results from the query you set. You can even do more advanced searches using parameters like "OR". In their example widget, Twitter uses the following search string "San Francisco OR @sf OR #sf" to make a live-updating San Francisco Twitter Search widget. And you can also loop old results if you're doing a search for something that will have a low volume of tweets, so the widget doesn't appear so static. There are no shortage of third-parties that do widgets like these, but an official Twitter one will no doubt be useful to many people for events or personal use. It's not quite the useful "track" functionality that Twitter used to have (which would ping you when a keyword you were searching for was said), but it's getting closer. We made one of these real-time widgets for TechCrunch, but the code you get doesn't appear to work too nicely with WordPress posts, so the picture will have to do for now. This new feature follows Twitter rolling out its "Twitter 101″ guide for businesses to use the service earlier tonight. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| Google Voice Gives Out Free Business Cards, Makes Switching Numbers Slightly Less Irritating
July 23, 2009 at 10:01 pm
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|  Over the last few weeks, Google Voice has finally begun sending out invites to the throngs of people who have signed up since the service stopped accepting new users in 2007, following its acquisition. But now that all of these people are beginning to experience the wonders of Google Voice, they're also running into its biggest roadblock: in order to be effective, you need everyone to start calling your new number. And that means you need to print new business cards. In recognition of this fact, Google is giving away 50,000 sets of 25 free Google Voice business cards, printed by iPrint. If you've got a Google Voice account, you can grab a set here.
The multicolored cards are definitely going to catch the eye of anyone you hand them to, and they also do a great job at highlighting the most important thing on the card: your new number. And while you may not be too keen to have everyone start calling you rather than using Email (which is going to be one of the side effects), you can always take advantage of Google Voice's automatic voicemail transcription. Of course, there's a good chance that none of this will be necessary once Google Voice introduces number portability, which would let you keep your current number and transfer it to the service. We've previously confirmed that a very small number of people have already been able to port their numbers over, and that Google hopes to roll it out later this year, though the logistical hurdles involved are huge. This isn't the first time Google has given away free business cards in honor of a new product launch. In May the search giant gave away free sets of cards to commemorate the launch of the inclusion of Google Profiles in search results (the cards instruct people to simply 'Google' your name). They're definitely great keepsakes, but I've got to be honest — every person I've handed one to has given me a really strange look. Thanks to Jeff Martens for the tip. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 
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| Twitter Launches "Twitter 101″, Step One Of The Business Plan
July 23, 2009 at 9:03 pm
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|  The first step of Twitter's business plan is something called "Twitter 101," which the company plans to launch either tonight or tomorrow, co-founder Biz Stone revealed at the Fortune Brainstorm Conference in Pasadena this evening. [Update below: The site is now live]
While Stone only gave a brief overview of what it would entail, as the name implies, it sounds like it will basically be a beginners guide for using the service effectively. Something like this is crucial if Twitter is going to convince businesses to sign up en masse. When most people, let alone businesses, look at Twitter for the first time, they still have no idea what they are supposed to do with it. So this guide will be a set of use cases, techniques and best practices, among other tips, to help users get acclimated to the service. "The level of engagement is less than the level of awareness about it, and we want to change that," Stone said. Twitter wants to teach people to use the service via these docs. And also get people hooked on trends and searches of their brands, Stone noted. It's through businesses using Twitter that the service plans to make money. While there are no plans to ever charge regular people to use it, businesses that are either selling items or providing support to customers through Twitter, are likely to be charged down the road. But Twitter needs to make sure the service is as business-friendly as possible first. Hence, a "Twitter 101″ service. Again, look for Twitter 101, which we imagine will be some kind of site linked to from the main Twitter site, either later today or tomorrow. Update: And here it is. As expected, it's a site that contains documentation for how businesses can best use Twitter (you can also get the documents in PDF form). Here's what Stone says on the blog: We coordinated with business students and writers to surface some interesting findings, best practices, steps for getting started, and case studies. The results demonstrate how customers are getting value out of Twitter and suggest techniques businesses can employ to enhance that value. While this work was envisioned for businesses, it's also useful for anyone using Twitter so have a look if you like.
The site contains six sections. They are: "What is Twitter", "Getting started", "Learn the lingo", "Best practices", "Case studies" and "Other resources". One thing we noticed is that the site contains links to a new subdomain: business.twitter.com (it looks like a lot of these links have been changed back to twitter.com, but business.twitter.com is there, and it works). It works on and off, but if you put in a brand name, like "bestbuy," it will redirect to that company's Twitter page. This would seem to indicate that Twitter may be thinking about hosting its business accounts on this business subdomain. Or perhaps that is how they will allow businesses to access their special accounts (when those eventually launch). It does not appear to work for personal accounts. Another thing that immediately jumps out about Twitter 101 are the case studies. They come from the likes of Dell, JetBlue, Teusner Wines, Current, Tasti D Lite, CoffeeGroundz, Etsy, NAKEDPizza, America Apparel and Pepsi. They are pretty well done, and show that even early on in Twitter's lifespan, without much support, companies are having no trouble figuring out how to use the service for business purposes. Here's Twitter's own definition of "tweet": Users refer to an individual message as a tweet, as in, "Check out this tweet about our CEO dancing on the sidelines of the Phoenix Suns game." People sometimes use it as a verb, too, as in, "I tweeted about the stimulus package this morning." If "tweet" is hard for you to use with a straight face in a business context, try "twittering" as a verb instead. Alternatives include "post," "message" and "update."
Here's how Twitter explains its own name: Twittering is the sound birds make when they communicate with each other—an apt description of the conversations here. As it turns out, because Twitter provides people with real-time public information, it also helps groups of people mimic the effortless way a flock of birds move in unison. On these pages, we'll show you a few examples of that powerful Twitter characteristic.
Here's what Twitter says it can do for businesses: Twitter is a communications platform that helps businesses and their customers do a number of useful things. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. As an individual user, you can use Twitter to tell a company (or anyone else) that you've had a great–or disappointing–experience with their business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers.
Below, find some screenshots of the sections. 
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| Biz Stone Talks Twitter At Fortune Brainstorm
July 23, 2009 at 8:33 pm
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|  Twitter's Biz Stone takes the stage at Fortune Brainstorm in Pasadena to talk with Fortune's Adam Lashinsky. The session, called "Changing The World In 140 Characters Or Less" begins shortly, I'll be live blogging it.
My real time notes follow. I can say with certainty that the Twitter hacking incident will be brought up as part of this conversation. My Notes: An audience poll shows 65% of attendees use Twitter, but 77% say they prefer Facebook to Twitter. First question from Lashinsky: "Will Twitter make money?" Biz says "yes!" - company has 55 employees now. - size of the service: Biz says they are 1% into the journey of Twitter, and they have a lot of growing to do. "The level of awareness is way bigger than the level of engagement." - How they will get more user engagement: start by showing users Twitter search and show results on your product, etc. Then they ask how they can get involved. "We have to position our product better," says Biz. Search and trends are ways to get immediate engagement from users. - Why isn't Twitter making money? Biz: Lots of people like Twitter and want it to succeed. They want Twitter to make money so that the company sticks around. Biz says that Twitter is being used by people and companies around the world, and if the network is robust and reliable, there are lots of ways to make money. But they need to optimize for value before they optimize for profit, he says. - Twitter's business plan will begin this year, he says (which correlates to the notes we published last week). First step - launching today or tomorrow Twitter 101, a set of use cases, techniques, best practices, etc to help new users and companies use Twitter effectively. Will post today or tomorrow, Biz says. Biz is excited about Best Buy's use of Twitter to engage with customers and provide better customer experience. - on the hacked documents: Biz says they are thought documents more than anything else, gives people an idea of the scope and level of what they are thinking of, nothing more. "We're thinking big," he says. - Biz says the easy business model is value added services, like verified accounts, that they can charge for. Advertising is less interesting, he says. - On whether he will sue TechCrunch: We're still investigating, he says. - Biz says they are preparing to launch lots of new features, really looking at a golden age for Twitter. New features that are coming - add more value to users, watch how users are using Twitter, bring new features that make sense. - Discovery on Twitter - how will they do a better job of this. Biz says they need to assign weight to users or specific Tweets to do a better job of surfacing Tweets. - On doing good in the world v. making money: "We want to have a real positive impact on the world, and the only way to do that is to make tons and tons of money." Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| Y Combinator's Mixpanel Takes Stat Tracking Beyond Google Analytics
July 23, 2009 at 8:23 pm
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|  One of the most key steps to building a succesful startup is figuring out what works — and what doesn't. To do this, many companies rely on things like A/B testing to figure out which workflows and designs work best. But there are some things that are a bit trickier to measure, like exactly which features your users are taking advantage of, and how they're using them. Mixpanel, a Y Combinator company launching today, is looking to solve this problem by offering companies a suite of analytics tools that go well beyond what tools like Google Analytics measure.
Founder Suhail Doshi says that most significantly large companies, like Slide for example, have entire teams dedicated to tracking user behavior. If you throw a virtual sheep at your friend using one of Slide's apps, you can be sure that every element of that action — including who the sheep's receipient was, the time you threw the sheep, and even what prompted you to throw the sheep in the first place — is being tracked. Unfortunately, most fledgling companies simply don't have the resources to put together this kind of analytics tracking. Mixpanel solves this problem by giving developers a library of stat tracking functions that they can quickly integrate with their code, saving them the development costs that would have been required to build their own analytics tools. Doshi says this can take as little as ten minutes to integrate, requiring only a line of code wherever there's something you want to track. After implementing these functions in their code, companies can track stats from the Mixpanel control panel, which updates in real time. Beyond tracking stats like the number of times a certain song is played or a given feature is used, Mixpanel can also do funnel analysis, which allows startups to measure when in a signup flow users begin to drop off (this allows them to figure out the pain points and lower barriers to entry as much as possible). Mixpanel's pricing is based on usage, which it measures by looking at the number of 'points' of data the service tracks. The company is already in use by a number of other startups (many of them fellow YC alumni) including Posterous and HeyZap. Analytics and stat tracking is extremely important to the growth of any company, especially one that's trying to gain users for the first time. Mixpanel is definitely honing in on a large market — its ultimate success will be decided by how useful the data it collects really is, and in how many datapoints it can track that free services can't. 
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 
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| Project Fair Bid Raises $4.5 Million For Stealth Auction Platform
July 23, 2009 at 7:40 pm
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Project Fair Bid, a stealth startup that is creating a Swoopo-like Auction platform, has raised $4.5 million in funding, according to a SEC filing. The funding was raised from the Mayfield Fund, First Round Capital, and Foundation Capital, with Raj Kapoor, Charles Moldow and Josh Kopelman joining the board of directors. Details on Project Fair Bid are limited but we hear the startup hopes to reinvent and legitimize the Swoopo business model by using a different auction methodology to improve consumer engagement and retention. Swoopo's business model has been criticized for its alternative bidding system. Swoopo uses a unique pricing model that lets you to purchase virtual "bids" for 75 cents, which can then be used to bid on goods ranging from video games to high-end televisions. Whenever you bid on an item, its price increases by fifteen cents and an extra 20 seconds are tacked on to the duration of the auction. Oftentimes items wind up selling substantially below their market value, but this lower price comes with some risk: if you bid on an item, you don't get that 75 cent bid back when the auction concludes. Even if the item winds up selling below its normal market price, Swoopo can make money from these bids (the site does sometimes lose money on an auction, but relies on the proceeds of other auctions to cover them). But Swoopo may be on to something—since launching in late 2008, the site has grown to almost 2 million members in Canada, Germany, the U.S., Austria, and Switzerland and closed a $10 million funding round led by August Capital. Photo credit/Flickr/walkinboston. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| Why Is Google Latitude A Web App And Not A Native App? Because Apple Said So.
July 23, 2009 at 6:59 pm
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|  We briefly pointed this out in our longer post on Google Latitude launching on the iPhone, but it's worth pointing this out separately. In its post today, Google made an unusual admission about its service: It apparently built a native Latitude app for the iPhone, but Apple asked it to make it a web app, so Google did that instead.
Here's their actual wording: We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles.
Hmm. We all know that Apple and Google are pretty buddy-buddy, after all, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on Apple board (though it's not clear for how long). But something about this sounds a bit odd. Apple dictating product decisions to Google, and Google listening. There has been talk of this in the past as well. And perhaps now we know why it took Google so long to get the service on what is the most popular smartphone out there right now. This is also a bit odd because if Apple is so worried about a confusion between Latitude and Maps, why not just build Latitude into Maps? Maybe that's coming down the road? Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| iPhone Security Is "Broken" - Business Users Take Note
July 23, 2009 at 6:45 pm
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|  An Apple expert and hacker has shown that the iPhone, in all its various forms and moltings, is child's play to compromise. This comes despite assurances from Apple regarding the 3GS's encryption feature. Bad news for businesspeople of the 21st century, who have glommed onto the iPhone and its service halo like no other device. The wonder-phone has certainly changed the way smartphones and other devices are made, but this isn't the first time Apple's security measures have been described as being seriously lacking. It seems that with a little creative coding, or access to an insecure computer, the iPhone can be cracked wide open. The encryption doesn't really even enter into the equation, since you can just have the phone read off the information you want. There hasn't been much of a reason to hack iPhones yet — you might get a few Facebook passwords, or some contact info, but now that the phone is gaining traction in the business world, there may actually be something worth stealing on them. And it's not very hard to do. I like this quote: "I don't think any of us have ever seen encryption implemented so poorly before." 
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| Google Latitude Comes To The iPhone. No, It Doesn't Run In The Background.
July 23, 2009 at 6:25 pm
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|  Google has finally gotten around to launching its location-based network, Latitude on the iPhone. The service, which has been around for months on the web and Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices may finally be ready to take off now that it's on the hottest smartphone on the market. But there's a problem — and it's a big one.
Latitude, like all other third-party iPhone apps, cannot run in the background on the device. While you might think this would be extremely obvious, there is a big difference between Latitude and many of the other apps built for the iPhone: Latitude is entirely browser-based. Yes, there is no native Latitude app, and there was some thought that since the mobile version of Safari on the iPhone can technically run in the background, that maybe it would allow apps like Latitude to also do the same. Sadly, that is not the case. Unfortunately, since there is no mechanism for applications to run in the background on iPhone (which applies to browser-based web apps as well), we're not able to provide continuous background location updates in the same way that we can for Latitude users on Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Window Mobile. Nevertheless, your location is updated every time you fire up the app and then continuously updated while the app is running in the foreground.
And so we very well could see Latitude stagnate in the same pool the other location-based iPhone services are in, because they cannot do location in the background. That's too bad, because there's a lot of potential here.  It became clear last week that Latitude was about to launch on the iPhone when Google unveiled Location for the mobile Safari browser. That feature allowed you to click a button on Google's homepage and access the iPhone's location services. Now you do the same to get your location piped into Latitude.
You can find it on your iPhone simply by directing your browser here: http://google.com/latitude. As with all other web apps, you can create an icon on your main iPhone screen, simply hitting the bookmarks button (the "+" sign in your browser). Despite Latitude and Gmail remaining web-only apps for the iPhone, Google says it remains committed to making native apps for the device where it sees fit as well. It also notes that it was Apple who thought it would be best to have Latitude as a web app for the device. Interesting. We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles.
That begs the question: Why not just have Latitude as an option built-in to the Maps application? I'm betting that eventually we may see that. And, if I really want to go out on a limb, I'm wondering if Apple wouldn't allow Latitude running on Maps to eventually run in the background. We know it is definitely thinking about how to solve the background issue. Despite being browser-based, Latitude on the iPhone does appear to run really smoothly. And it has a nice overlaid menu system to do things like search or show traffic on your map. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| Amazon's Bezos Apologizes For The "Stupid" And "Thoughtless" Kindle Incident
July 23, 2009 at 5:55 pm
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|  Last week, Amazon sent a shiver down the spine of the Internet when it remotely deleted copies of the books "1984″ and "Animal Farm" from users' Kindles. As just about everyone was quick to point out, the incident showed a very "Big Brother"-like side to the company. It was simply dumbfounding, and left many people very, very angry. And it made many question whether they should ever buy any books on their Kindles again.
Amazon quickly admitted that the move was a mistake to the press with a bland statement, but that wasn't enough. So today, right before the company announced its earnings, CEO Jeff Bezos personally apologized for the incident as follows: This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission. With deep apology to our customers, Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com
While the company had its reasons (apparently, the versions it deleted were unauthorized versions) and did give refunds, it didn't change the fact that it was invading devices and taking back content which those people had (at least to their knowledge) legally bought. And it knows that was wrong, which is good. Companies make mistakes, and we'll chalk this up to a big, dumb one by Amazon, because they've now said as much. But what also troubles me is that while Amazon apologizes for incidents like this, it says nothing about other sketchy moves. Like how it is forcing mobile applications to be taken down because they access their APIs in a way that they don't like (even though it's fine to use the same calls on desktop versions of the apps). And the whole idea of companies being able to remotely wipe content that you've bought is still troubling (Apple can do it to on your iPhone, but hasn't used that power yet). But welcome to the 21st century. Not only is Big Brother watching, he's got a backdoor passcode into your devices — and a kill switch. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 
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| Amazon: Kindle Growth Is "Very Strong", But That's All We're Saying
July 23, 2009 at 5:48 pm
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|  During this afternoon's Amazon Q2 conference call, there was one topic that was clearly on many analysts' minds: the Kindle. With the recent release of the Kindle DX and the Kindle 2 only a few months before it, the financial success of the device is still very much a mystery, especially since Amazon has long been tightlipped about releasing any Kindle sales figures. CFO Tom Szkutak, who led the call, kept to that script.
Szkutak had little interest in getting into questions about the Kindle, other than to repeat that growth was "very strong" multiple times. When one analyst asked what kind of trends Amazon is seeing with regard to the Kindle cannibalizing book sales, Szkutak danced around the question, stating, "We're not doing any updates in terms of the units, in terms of specific numbers. We're seeing very good growth. It's exceeding our expectations." One analyst also asked about Amazon's recent decision to lower the price of the Kindle to $299, attempting to explore if the move was a result of cheaper production costs or if Amazon did it to increase market penetration. Szkutak vaguely responded, saying that the Kindle was currently getting better economies but not really answering the question: "We certainly are getting better economies, and given the growth in Kindle devices..we think that's an appropriate price for customers, we think it's helpful given the growth that we're seeing." Another analyst asked about Amazon's plans to finally bring the Kindle to an international audience (it has only been available in the US until now). Szkutak didn't rule out the idea, but didn't commit either, stating, "Kindle International is certainly an opportunity. Our customers have certainly expressed an interest. We've had a practice of not talking about what we might do, but certainly it's an opportunity." I'll be very surprised if we don't see more news in this area soon, as this is a huge untapped market. Amazon's lack of transparency is especially frustrating because the Kindle may well be something of a canary in a coal mine for the entire Ebook industry. No other E-book device has gotten as much exposure, and frankly the Kindle is likely the best device out there. Without statistics about how well Amazon's Ebooks are selling, or even knowing if the Kindle is going to be available to the (very large) international audience, publishers and authors being left in the dark. We've done our best to shed some light on the matter: according to our historically reliable sources, as of April, the Kindle 2 had sold 300,000 units at a pace twice that of the original device. We should note that while Amazon's acquisition of Zappos was briefly brought up during the call, few questions were focused on it. Also interesting: only a few hours before the call, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apologized for its bizarre decision to remotely delete copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindle. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| Microsoft's Money Pit. Every Dollar Of Online Revenue Is Wiped Out By A Dollar Of Loss
July 23, 2009 at 5:35 pm
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|  Microsoft just announced quarterly earnings and they are not pretty. Total revenues are down 17 percent to $13 billion, and net income is down 29 percent to $3 billion. Every business got hit hard, but the worst-performing business by far was the online business. It had the biggest operating loss of $732 million, which was $1 million more than its revenues of $731 million. That means that every dollar of online revenue was wiped out by a dollar of operating loss. And those operating losses really stack up. For its fiscal year (which ended in June), the online business showed an operating loss of $2.2 billion, nearly twice as much as the year before. Despite the much-ballyhooed launch of Bing, search revenue was flat in the quarter was flat. You've got to wonder how much of the ballooning operating loss is going into Bing, and whether those investments will ever pan out. The client business (Windows), isn't doing so hot either. Revenues in the quarter were down 29 percent to $3.1 billion, and it made $1 billion less in operating profit. The Entertainment business (Xbox) saw quarterly revenues decline 25 percent, but managed to reduce operating loses to only $130 million. 1.2 million Xboxes were sold in the quarter, and each Xbox owner has now bought an average of 8.6 games. At least servers and Tools under Bob Muglia seems to be holding up. Its revenues of $3.5 billion were only down by $200 million and its operating profit of $1.3 billion was essentially flat. (Click on segment breakdown below to enlarge). 
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| Review: T-Mobile myTouch 3G With Google Android
July 23, 2009 at 4:56 pm
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|  It's been twenty long months since the announcement of Android and nine months since its handset debut, but it's finally picking up steam. On August 5th, the HTC-made T-Mobile myTouch 3G will become the second Android handset to make its way to the shelves of a US carrier. In the time its taken for T-Mobile to cross the t's and dot the i's, we've already had a chance to review HTC's next handset: the bigger, badder, and (arguably) better Hero. Alas, the Hero isn't yet confirmed for any US carrier, so we'll take what we can get. Was the myTouch 3G worth the wait? Read on for our review. 
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| Google's Ronny Conway Joins Andreessen Horowitz
July 23, 2009 at 3:50 pm
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|  Ronny Conway, an Associate at Google Ventures, has resigned from Google and joined the newly formed Andreessen Horowitz, we've confirmed. Conway, the son of prominent angel investor Ron Conway, has worked at Google for the last six years in a variety of business development, sales and venture roles.
This is the first confirmed outside hire by Andreessen Horowitz, a $300 million venture fund founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The fund was first announced earlier this month. Conway will become an Associate at the new fund starting sometime in August. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| The Online Payment Wars Continue: PayPal Officially Announces Flexible API
July 23, 2009 at 3:34 pm
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While Ebay's Q2 earnings yesterday showed that its marketplace business was slow, the company's revenue was boosted by continued growth in its online payments business, including PayPal and BillMeLater. Both businesses saw 11 % growth in revenue in the quarter, compared to a year ago, and saw a 20% increase in registered accounts from last year, with 75.4 million accounts. On the heels of this good news, today PayPal is officially announcing the launch of its flexible payments API, called Adaptive Payments (which we scooped a few weeks ago here). Basically the new API is designed to give developers full access to PayPal's features, allowing them a lot more freedom in building applications which include the ability to accept and distribute payments. Very similar to Amazon's Flexible Payments Service (FPS), the Adaptive Payments API handles payments between a sender of a payment and one or more receivers of the payment. Adaptive Payments allows almost the same functionality as FPS. The new API lets developers become a payment aggregator, which we are told is something against PayPal's current Terms of Service. Amazon's FPS also lets developers aggregate payments. Moreover, Paypal's Adaptive Payments has built in micropayments support, another feature of FPS. Some of the offerings of Adaptive Payments are sure to be attractive to developers. In what PayPal calls "Chained Payments," developers can create applications that enable a sender to send a single payment to a primary receiver who may keep part of the payment and pay other, secondary receivers with the remainder of the funds. For example, an application might be an online travel agency that handles bookings for airfare, hotel reservations, and car rentals. The sender sees only the travel site as the primary receiver. But that site could allocate the payment for its commission and the actual cost of services provided by other merchants. PayPal would deduct the money from the sender's account and deposit it in both the primary travel site's account and the secondary receivers' accounts. Adaptive Payments will also offer "Parallel Payments," which would let a sender send a single payment to multiple receivers. An example of this type of application might be a shopping cart that lets a buyer pay for items from several merchants with one payment. The shopping cart would allocate the payment to the merchants who actually provided the items. PayPal would then deduct money from the sender's account and deposits it in the receivers' accounts. It's unclear what PayPal's pricing plan will be for Adaptive Payments and if it will be competitive with Amazon's FPS pricing. The launch of the new API and services should surely heat up the competition between PayPal and Amazon (which bought Zappos yesterday). Amazon now has Amazon Payments and the beta of FPS, which allows more flexibility for developers than PayPal's previous Direct Payments API offering. Now, PayPal has struck back with its own flexible A PI, so it should be interesting to see where developers go. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| TicketFlow: You Know, For Tickets
July 23, 2009 at 3:33 pm
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I was not aware that the live event marketplace was so crowded. Apparently there are hundreds of ticket websites out there including StubHub and TicketMaster. Luckily, TicketFlow is there to make sense of it for you.
TicketFlow is the self-described Kayak of ticket sites. You type in an artist, team, play, or musical and it digs through the various websites to find tickets that match your requirements. Want to see a cheap Bob Dylan concert? Head down to Virginia. Want to watch Toxic Avenger: The Musical? Why? 
The found, Justin Hartzman, worked with a buddy to aggregate all of the ticket sites into one simple-to-use interface. One other site, FanSnap, performs a similar function and also allows you to chose your seats at the venue. The system also includes a suggestion engine. You tell it what you want to do and in what city - concert, play, sporting event - and it will find events in your time frame and budget. It seemed to work fairly well in New York except for an unfortunate typo in the application dialog but, as we all know, nobody is perfick. See if you can spot it… 
Generally this is an interesting and untapped market. The live music and event discovery world is still in its infancy and aside from the obvious sources - mostly weekly papers and some fan sites - you're not going to hear that Willie and Bobby will be playing in your neck of the woods until it's too late. The most important aspect here is obviously price comparisons, something that was once time-consuming. Sadly, this does not do a search into the infinite future, ensuring that my life will be forever free of the pan flute for months - if not years - to come.
 Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| Gmail Tries To Make It Easier To Unsubscribe From Spam Newsletters, But Fails
July 23, 2009 at 2:57 pm
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|  When it comes to email, less is more. So I applaud Gmail's efforts to try to reduce all the unwanted emails in my inbox. Its latest attempt to make it easier to unsubscribe from unwanted email newsletters is well-intentioned, but falls flat on its face in its current form. When you report a newsletter as spam, you may now see the notification box above asking you if you want to automagically unsubscribe as well. You would click "Unsubscribe and report as spam" and Gmail will unsubscribe for you. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, that is because it is. First of all, it only works for messages which include a "List-Unsusbcribe" header in the email with an accompanying "mailto" URL. No self=respecting spammer would include those. But wait, it gets worse. The feature is purposely unactivated for known spammers. Brad Taylor, writes on the Gmail Blog: This only works for some senders right now. We're actively encouraging senders to support auto-unsubscribe — we think 100% should. We won't provide the unsubscribe option on messages from spammers: we can't trust that they'll actually unsubscribe you, and they might even send you more spam. So you'll only see the unsubscribe option for senders that we're pretty sure are not spammers and will actually honor your unsubscribe request. We're being pretty conservative about which senders to trust in the beginning; over time, we hope to offer the ability to unsubscribe from more email.
Just to repeat that: the unsubscribe-from-spam-newsletters feature does not work for known spam. Okay, I guess that makes sense. It's a losing battle, and spammers will obviously not cooperate. But why then combine this feature with the report-spam button in teh first place? The Gmail team should separate the two functions. It should just make an unsubscribe button appear on email newsletters which contain the correct header information. I get annoyed at all the email newsletters that come into my inbox, but they are not all spam. Some of them I even subscribed to myself in moments of weakness, although most of them I have no idea how they start appearing in my inbox. But even for the unwanted ones, I realize it is not necessarily the publisher of those email newsletters who signed me up. And not all of them deserve being labeled as spam. I just want an easy way to unsubscribe. Can you give that to me, Gmail? Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors 
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| The Mac Versus PC Debate Has Never Been Clearer
July 23, 2009 at 2:57 pm
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|  "Our goal is not to build the most computers. It's to build the best."
That was Apple COO Tim Cook two days ago during Apple's quarterly earnings call. Sure, it may sound like spin from an executive who doesn't have a better answer as to why Apple isn't competing in the low-end of the market, and thus, gaining market share. But it's not. You need look no further than numbers released today by NPD to understand Apple's strategy. Its revenue share of the "premium" price market — that is, computers over $1,000 — is a staggering 91%. This means that 9 out of every 10 retail dollars that is spent on PCs in that price range, goes to Apple, as Betanews' Joe Wilcox points out. That, for lack of a better word, is insane. Analysts and journalists are often quick to point out Apple's relatively low overall market share (less than 10%). But that completely misses the point of Apple's Mac business. If Apple wanted to make a range of low-end computers, it absolutely could. And such machines would sell like crazy, boosting Apple's market share. But there would have to be some trade-off in quality, and perhaps more importantly to Apple, to its high margins. And as it has proven time and time again, it has no desire to give up either. Instead, Apple is content to keep churning out its high-quality, high-margin machines, and watch the profits roll in. If it happens to gain market share as a byproduct of that, that's great. You can't be so naive to think that Apple doesn't care about that at all, of course it does, but it's clearly a secondary goal, which most people don't seem to understand. It's a metaphor that's often used, but a way to think about it is if Windows-based PCs as a whole are thought of as a top selling car like the Toyota Camry, Apple's Mac computers would be more like a luxury car, like a Porsche. Porsche sales are just a fraction of Camry sales because it does not sell any models in the low-end price range. But at the same time, Porsche makes more money on each car sold and maintains a premium branding. If Porsche started selling cheap cars, it would move a lot more units, but it would no longer be the Porsche brand that we know. That's not to say the Camry sucks or that the Porsche is perfect. They're just two different cars that cater to different markets. And they represent the two different goals that most Windows-based PCs have (market share) versus Apple's Mac computers (high-end revenue share). And that's why Microsoft's recent Laptop Hunter commercials really never made a lot of sense. Sure, from a marketing perspective, I understand the idea: It's a down economy, lets play up the fact that our computers are cheaper. But in many of the spots, the shopper's stated desired computer was simply not something that Apple even made. In the famous first commercial, Lauren wants a laptop with a 17-inch screen for under $1,000. Okay, Apple doesn't make that product. So of course she's not going to buy a Mac. The real point is that people who are shopping for computers where price is the key factor, were never going to buy Macs anyway. They never have. There is a reason Apple still has less than 10% market share. Did Microsoft need to spend millions of dollars on commercials to tell us that? Instead, those commercials set up a narrative around the bifurcation of the computer-buying public. And today's NPD numbers are the perfect ending to that story. If you're a consumer looking for a bargain computer, you're happy to save money buying a PC. If you're looking for a premium computer, you're happy to spend more money buying a Mac. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| Kontera Raises $15.5M For Annoying In-Text Advertising Technology
July 23, 2009 at 1:00 pm
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|  In-text advertising technology provider Kontera has raised $15.5 million from its current investors Sequoia Capital, Carmel Ventures and Tenaya Capital, the former venture capital arm of Lehman Brothers. This is the second Israeli startup to announce multi-million VC rounds today after 5min informed the public about its $7.5 million Series B round, and once again first reported by business news site Globes.
Kontera provides publishers with real-time semantic analysis technology that can enhance content and other information to dynamically link terms that most accurately represent and predict user-intent and engagement. This is known as in-text advertising, and you might recognize the double-underlined words on some sites that make display ads pop up when you hover your mouse over them. Other market players include Vibrant Media and Infolinks. Personally, I find this type of contextual advertising annoying from a reader perspective, and I don't think I've ever clicked on any ads launched by in-text advertisements, unless it was by accident. But I keep hearing from publishers and advertisers who have implemented campaigns using in-text advertising that it's actually a highly effective way of pay-per-click promotion, and you wouldn't be the first to tell they were skeptical at first but lauding the technology afterwards. With the fresh injection, the total amount of capital pumped into the company has now reached $32.8 million. The $10.3 million Series B round now dates back nearly two years. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| AOL May Spin Bebo Off Into Independent Company
July 23, 2009 at 12:47 pm
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|  Interesting off hand comment by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong at the Fortune event this morning. Bebo, the social network AOL paid $850 million for in 2008, wasn't mentioned on the list of AOL's core product goals going forward. Late in the interview, though, Armstrong was asked where Bebo fits into that strategy. His answer, roughly quoted "Bebo may be better off under AOL Ventures, with it's own P&L."
Translation - AOL is looking to spin Bebo off into an independent company, and they'll retain an equity interest via AOL Ventures. This is pretty much in line with what he told Erick during an interview last week. During that interview he distanced himself from the acquisition: "I was not here during the acquisition of Bebo. Social networking was an unclaimed category, and growing quickly." The reason he placed it in AOL Ventures is so that it can "focus on improving the consumer product," he said. Armstrong added that one of the purposes of AOL Ventures is "to keep things on track that have not been on track. " But he noted that there is another purpose for AOL Ventures as well. In areas where product synergies "have not been realized, it gives us an opportunity to take it out of AOL, to make it groomed, and maybe attract outside investment." It was pretty clear he was talking about Bebo. AOL acquired Bebo in early 2008 for $850 million. But the property has languished since then and it has not been integrated much at all into AOL proper. Bebo had 8.7 million unique visitors in the U.S. in June, 2009, 20 percent down from its peak in March, 2009 (comScore). Globally, it is holding up better, with 24.2 million uniques in May, 2009 down 12 percent since March, 2009. But if Facebook is worth $6 billion to $10 billion, Bebo might still be able to get a decent valuation if it can hold onto its users. 
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors 
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| Tim Armstrong At Fortune Brainstorm: The First 100 Days Are Over. So Now What?
July 23, 2009 at 12:24 pm
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|  New AOL CEO Tim Armstrong takes the stage at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Pasadena, California this morning for an early interview by David Kirkpatrick.
Armstrong has been on a bit of a road show recently, talking in vague terms to press about the future of AOL after the spinoff from Time Warner. Erick Schonfeld sat down with him last week for an interview, and I've done my own speculation around AOL's go forward strategy as well. So what is AOL's next move? Kirkpatrick starts off with a great question - why did you leave Google to take control of an "also ran"? "AOL offers one of the biggest opportunities on the Internet," he responded. AOL's has a valuable worldwide brand and with a lot of work AOL can be very successful. Kirkpatrick says that blogs (moi?) have speculated that AOL can dominate in certain areas. Asks Tim if that is accurate. Armstrong responds that there are lots of white space areas, wants to focus on - Content (CMS, scaled content)
- Display advertising
- Local and mapping (Mapquest is huge brand)
- messaging (email, IM, SMS)
- AOL Ventures. No mention of Bebo. The strategy won't be "get them on and make them look at ads," which is AOL's old strategy, he says. On the effectiveness of display advertising to run a business: "Consumer behavior continues to change drastically online…monetization on the Internet will continue to go up…It's under monetized as a whole." Armstrong says they'll take a "silicon valley" approach to content. Google took a systematic approach to building the plumbing for ads, he says. AOL will do the same for content. Tomorrow Armtrong will speak to AOL employees about the end of the 100 day review process that he began when he first came to AOL. On that process: "I spent a lot of time traveling and listening to employees and partners. The 100 days is about strategy. What can we be strong at. And what is the structure behind the strategy? Finally, what are the revenue and cost plans for the companies?" Kirkpatrick digs deeper: "Tell me how AOL can win." Armstrong's answer is that AOL has a great brand, but it needs improvement. They're geared up for that. On AOL's social networking future (Bebo): "Theoretically social networking and messaging work together well. But you have to have the right products…Bebo may be more successful under AOL Ventures with it's own P&L." Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 
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| Social Browsing Assistant Glue Adds Recommendations And Facebook Comments
July 23, 2009 at 12:20 pm
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If you want to add social smarts to your browsing experience, Glue by Adaptive Blue just got better. Glue is a Firefox add-on that uses semantic technology to understand the subject of the page you are on and shows you via a bar at the bottom of your browser whether your friends have commented or liked the item anywhere on the Web. Glue works for movies, books, games, restaurants, wines, stock charts, and more. (It is very product oriented). The big new feature being rolled out today is product recommendations. Every time you click on the "like" heart, it recognizes what you are liking (movie, book, wine) and recommends other items in the same category based on your previous likes and those of your friends. You can now share your likes with your friends on Facebook as well (via Facebook Connect) or Twitter (which you could do before). There is also a new "Shuffle" button which works like the Stumble button on StumbleUpon or the Random button on the Diggbar, except that it randomly generates a recommended page on the same topic. So if you are on Amazon looking at books and hit the "Shuffle" button, you will get another page with a recommended book, If you are looking t wines, you will get wine. And not necessarily from Amazon. The nice thing about Glue is that if a friend of yours "likes" a movie on Netflix via the Glue bar, it counts as a like when you look at that same movie on Amazon or Fandango or Yahoo Movies. (Here are all the sites Glue supports). I'm still on the fence about having a bar that pops up as I browse because sometimes I don't care what my Glue friends think. But I'm definitely going to give the recommendations a whirl. Discovery is always good. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| EtherPad Gets A Makeover And Becomes Even More Of A Threat To Google Docs (Invites)
July 23, 2009 at 12:00 pm
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|  AppJet's EtherPad, the real-time Google Docs-like wiki tool we wrote about last fall, has been upgraded to be prettier, more user-friendly and far more collaborative than before. EtherPad was the brainchild of former Googlers (who founded online programming tool and Y Combinator funded AppJet) who wanted a real-time, yet group oriented way to collaborate on notes and documents. Thus, EtherPad was born. We have 100 free beta invites to the premium version of EtherPad here. When we first reviewed EtherPad, we found the web-based rival to Google Docs to be sore on the eyes but incredibly useful. What made EtherPad unique from the start was the ability to have multiple people making edits and writing in a document in real-time. You simply create a document, send the link around, and anyone can join. Each user's edits are highlighted in a different color (with a key featured on the side with which color belongs to each user). Changes are made in absolute real time, something even Google hasn't been able to do (Google docs update every fifteen seconds). Users can also chat in the sidebar and save versions of documents forever. Now, EtherPad has launched a new, redesigned version with more tools and functionality that may just give Google Docs a run for its money. First, EtherPad completely redesigned the entire UI to look softer and simpler. The interface is much less stark and easier on the eyes. EtherPad also lets you import and export Word, PDF, Plain Text and HTML documents. Appjet made writing a document in EtherPad more like writing out notes in Word or Google Docs, adding rich text formatting, including bold, underline, italics and strikethrough commands to the wiki. And organization of notes within a document became a little better with the ability to add bullet points. Additionally, EtherPad now has a monetization strategy. You can use the service for free, but you cannot make your documents secure via a password. The EtherPad Professional Edition is securely hosted in the cloud, free for up to 3 users; $8 per user per month above 3 users. The Private Network Edition for Enterprises is $99 per seat as a one-time fee for life, but your documents will be kept behind a firewall. AppJet's co-founder Aaron Iba says that 300,000 synchronous pads have been created on EtherPad and it is being used by a vast variety of companies and organizations. For example, students at Stanford Law School use EtherPad to collaborate on note-taking during class. And tech companies are using the product to interview engineers remotely while still being able to test the ability to write code for an application at the same time. AppJet recently closed an angel round of funding of about $250,000 led by Mitch Kapor, who was joined by Chris Yeh, and others. The startup has also received seed funding from Y Combinator and the FriendFeed founders. After seeing a demo of the new and improved EtherPad, it seems clear that the fledgling product has the potential to rival Google Docs and other popular collaborative wikis on a pure feature basis. EtherPad is planning to add several more features to the mix in the near future including spell check, the ability to import images and video conferencing. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| Online Ad Revenues At The New York Times Keep Dropping Like A Rock
July 23, 2009 at 11:02 am
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As if the New York Times doesn't have enough to worry about, with total advertising revenues down 32 percent in the second quarter, its online business is deteriorating as well. In its earnings announcement this morning, the company breaks out Internet advertising revenues of $68 million, which is a 15.5 percent drop from a year ago. The year-over-year declines keep getting worse, as you can see in the chart above. In the last three quarters the annual decline went from a 3.5 percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2008 to a 6.1 percent decrease in the first quarter of 2009 to negative 15.5 percent this quarter. Annual Decline In Internet Advertising Revenues 4Q08: -3.5%
1Q09: -6.1%
2Q09: -15.5% While the $68 million is a fraction of the NYT's $454 million in total advertising revenues in the quarter (and an even smaller portion of the company's overall revenues of $702 million, which includes circulation and other sources), the NYT is a bellwether when it comes to media sites on the Web. And if it can't stem the bleeding on the Web side of its business, other publishers are likely having trouble as well. There is one glimmer of hope, however. On a sequential basis, compared to last quarter, the NYT's Internet ad revenues were virtually flat ($68.0 million vs. $67.6 million). And the company as a whole was able to eke out a profit of $21 million, but only because it slashed $132 million worth of costs. And Classified advertsing revenues were down 45 percent. So it is still very much in the woods. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| The Song of the PowerSquid: The Inside Story of the Life of an Invention
July 23, 2009 at 10:49 am
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|  Hello, my name is Christopher Hawker. I am a professional inventor, specializing in innovative consumer products. My company is called Trident Design, LLC. I have developed many products in numerous industries and have over 20 products on the market. My most famous invention is the PowerSquid, a cephalopod-inspired power strip with outlets situated at the end of short cords, thereby eliminating the problem of losing outlets to bulky transformer plugs. John Biggs, editor-in-chief of this blog, has asked me to write the story of the birth of the PowerSquid and its development and journey to market. This is the Song of the PowerSquid. Part 1: Genesis This is a story of the birth of a product, a company and a career. It's an example of how to turn ideas into reality. But, more importantly, it is also a story – albeit a cautionary one – of how to earn a profit from new product ideas, something easier said than done. 
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| RackSpace Opens The Cloud
July 23, 2009 at 10:38 am
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|  Rackspace is open-sourcing the specs for its Cloud Servers and Cloud Files APIs under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license, enabling third-party developers to copy, implement and rehash them as they see fit.
In addition, The Rackspace Cloud (formerly known as Mosso) has made available Cloud Files language bindings along with technical guidelines for Java, PHP, Python, C# and Ruby under the MIT license through GitHub. Rackspace aims to offer a reference implementation in Python soon and in a press release casually mentions it "is aware of Ruby, Perl, Java, and Twisted Python Cloud Servers bindings", which are all in the process of being developed. With the approach, the company hopes to compete better with cloud computing giant Amazon on its own turf - and also Microsoft with its upcoming Windows Azure service - by generally being more open to developers as far as their client-side tools go. In case you were not aware, Rackspace also recently released its Cloud API for Cloud Servers, which allows users to write code that detects a workload in the cloud and scales up the number of servers meeting it as needed, in public beta. The company is heavily trying to position itself as the best alternative to Amazon, which it acknowledges is bigger in size but lacking an open strategy towards the cloud and standards. On a sidenote, we're hearing the company is preparing the launch of a new iPhone application that will let customers manage their Rackspace cloud accounts from their iPhone devices. It should be arriving some time in the next few weeks. Will Rackspace's efforts in breaking open their cloud offering be enough of a differentiator to compete effectively in an increasingly saturated market? Time will tell, but judging by its stock performance investors are taking quite a liking into the hosting company and its growth strategy. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| Bubble Motion Scores $6 Million In Funding For Voice Messaging Solutions
July 23, 2009 at 9:24 am
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|  Voice messaging company Bubble Motion has secured $6 million in financing from Palomar Ventures, for which this is the first investment in the startup, and existing investors Sequoia Capital and Comcast Interactive Capital.
Venturebeat had earlier confirmed the fundraising based on a regulatory filing but at the time it was unclear who the investors were. Al Snyder, former COO of Openwave and currently CEO of Aepona will join the Bubble Motion's board of directors along with Amanda Reed from Palomar Ventures. Bubble Motion is mostly known for BubbleTALK, a so-called 'click, talk, and send' messaging service that the company deems to be more fun than SMS and doesn't require any calling. The company works with mobile operators from around the world to create a network of voice messaging and voice content applications, making BubbleTALK available to over 225 million subscribers worldwide. Considering its international approach, it makes sense for the company to have offices spread across the globe: Bubble Motion currently employs people in Silicon Valley, Singapore, London, Madrid, Rome, Stockholm, Helsinki, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur, and Tokyo. The new funding round brings the total amount of capital invested in the company to $35 million. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 
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| 'How To' Video Site 5min Raises An Extra $7.5 Million
July 23, 2009 at 8:40 am
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|  Instructional video site 5min, based in NYC and Israel, has raised an additional $7.5 million in a round led by Globespan Capital Partners and joined by previous investor Spark Capital, reports Hebrew-language business news site Globes. This brings the total of capital invested in the startup, founded in 2006, to a healthy $12.8 million.
Its most recent financing round was $5 million from Spark back in November 2007, following a painful $300,000 angel round (at least it was painful for the startup's founders) which we talked about a bit in the post covering the announcement of their first VC round. 5min is in essence a syndication platform for instructional, knowledge and lifestyle videos, both professionally produced and user-generated. The service's video library boasts tens of thousands of videos across a variety of categories (e.g. Pets), submitted by media companies and independent producers from around the world. The site has clearly struck a chord with legions of people looking for free hands-on instructions captured on video, since 5min reportedly attracts a significant audience of between 160 and 200 million unique visitors on a monthly basis. A big part of its vast reach comes from hundreds of publishers and advertisers who use the company's VideoSeed product, which uses semantic technology to automatically match videos to their respective audiences. What I personally like about 5min is the rich, custom video player, dubbed SmartPlayer. An example video is embedded below. (Thanks to Ouriel Ohayon for the tip) Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors 
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| Woah, People Really Don't Like IE6
July 23, 2009 at 6:45 am
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|  People, especially web developers and designers, tend to have a profound dislike of Internet Explorer 6. That's not news, but it keeps amazing me how deep this hate runs. Consider my recent article on YouTube prompting IE6 users to please switch to a modern browser, which garnered no less than 391 comments and over 2300 retweets. Needless to say, most people were applauding the Google company for the move and encouraging each other to spread the word etc.
Of course, the main reason why IE6 is still being used at all is because of corporate IT departments across the globe needing to make upgrade decisions. And we all know these things can take (far too much) time, particularly in major companies where the IT force oversees thousands if not hundreds of thousands of computers. Now a passionate bunch of IE6 haters, their fire apparently fueled by our earlier post, is once again taking to the Web to shout out "Hey IT" and attempt to persuade IT departments into getting a move on the browser upgrade decision making. The arsenal of weaponry: the website, some funny posters, a Facebook group and a Twitter campaign. I'm sanely skeptical that this effort will make any difference, but can't blame one for trying, right? Update: apparently the Hey IT website isn't IE6 or IE7-friendly (oh, the irony). Update 2: there's also IE6Update.com 
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| Artist Finds His Own Music Video Removed From YouTube, Lashes Out On Twitter
July 23, 2009 at 6:10 am
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|  Hell hath no fury like a music-artist-who-sees-his-own-music-video-removed-from-YouTube scorned. The video sharing service may be doing its best to keep copyrighted material off its website, but London-based artist Calvin Harris, who saw the music video of his 'Ready For The Weekend - Original Mix' being deleted from his own account over copyright claims, is not amused. The artist has been lashing out on his Twitter account this morning, and you're advised to turn your eyes away if you object to foul language.
Harris' strong words are directed mostly at the BPI, 'the representative voice of the UK recorded music business' according to the organization's website, who apparently filed the DMCA complaint in this case. They sure don't seem to represent this particular artist's voice, since he's currently threatening to drive a hired car through the front window of their building and "hopefully reach the online monkeys at the back of the office" in between calling their employees retards and bastards and using the F-word a lot. 
There's a bigger issue here. According to the tipster who pointed us to Harris' rant, this is just one example of apparent spats between music labels who are apparently turning on the heat by throwing DMCA notices at each other in the hope that music videos from competing record companies get removed from legitimate accounts (where they generally get the most views). In this case, it's the BPI who filed the copyright claim, according to the artist on Twitter. Apparently, no warnings were given on beforehand, leaving Harris virtually powerless now that the video has effectively been removed without him being contacted. How ironic is that, given this excerpt lifted from the BPI website: The BPI believes that a graduated response system – whereby infringing subscribers are given an escalated notifications, warnings and deterrent measures – is a fair and proportionate way to effect a change in behaviour.
Who needs a change in behavior here? Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| Are Some Spinvox call Centre Staff Putting Voicemails On Facebook?
July 23, 2009 at 5:57 am
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|  Some Spinvox call centre staff are chattering away on Facebook - essentially a public platform - about internal company operations and in one incident we've found, posting what sounds like a private call onto Facebook. A BBC investigation today has uncovered evidence of Spinvox using call centers to convert messages. It's been rumored for some time that this was the case, but the company has always maintained that this was just to convert small amounts of messages which were hard to understand. They said the vast bulk of message conversion was done via their patented voice to text software. However, there appears to be a very large, globally located call center operation at work - larger perhaps than would be suggested by mere error messages. Spinvox says it works with some of the world's biggest telecoms companies and institutional investors which have have done their diligence and audited the service. We've put a call in and are waiting for their full response to this story.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
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| Sure, The U.S. Has A Lot Of Click Fraud, But At Least We're Not Vietnam
July 23, 2009 at 4:31 am
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|  When it comes to ad clicks, Anchor Intelligence says it has more data than anyone this side of Google and Yahoo. And so when they release a report for the first time outlining what they're seeing in click fraud rates, it's worth paying attention to. And the numbers are interesting.
This initial report spans the first 6 months of 2009. Clicks are broken down as "valid" or "invalid", with "invalid" ones further broken down into "innocuous invalid" and "attempted click fraud". That last classification is obviously the key one. Over those two quarters, Anchor Intelligence's data indicates that click fraud has remained steady, increasing slightly in Q2 to 22.9%, up from 21.7% in Q1. Yes, it remains a problem. But the real interesting data comes when you break down the click fraud rates by country, as the report does. While the U.S. is pretty bad with an attempted click fraud rate of just over 25%, that pales in comparison to Vietnam, which has an attempted click fraud rate approaching 50%. No other country is even close to them, as Canada is number 2 with a 27.7% attempted click fraud rate, and the U.S. is third. And while the U.S. accounts for the majority of the clicks that Anchor Intelligence sees, it's not like Vietnam is entirely insignificant on the list. Of the top 30 countries Anchor measures, Vietnam has the 6th most amount of click volume across the network. Back in April, Anchor Intelligence announced that the search engine Ask became a client to try eliminate some of its click fraud. While the service is fairly secretive about who it works with, other Anchor clients include Technorati, LookSmart and Adbrite. Find some of the key parts of the report below. 
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors 
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| Zivity Splits Employees, Execs, Venture Funding Into Two Companies
July 23, 2009 at 4:27 am
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|  In a highly unusual transaction, Zivity, a venture funded adult content startup, has spun off the majority of its assets, employees and venture funding into a new company called Top Fans. Zivity first launched at TechCrunch40 in 2007 and has raised a total of $8 million in venture capital.
Cofounder Cyan Banister takes the CEO spot at Zivity, which will continue to publish adult content. She also keeps Zivity-related software and other assets, two other employees and a portion of the $4 million or so that the company still has in bank. Former Zivity CEO Jon Elvekrog will now become the CEO of Top Fans, and the remaining 7 employees will join him. The original founding team of Zivity and the angel investors in their first round of financing are now the sole shareholders of Zivity. Venture funds BlueRun Ventures and The Founders Fund, who invested $7 million in Zivity in March 2008, will transfer their ownership to Top Fans. The net effect of the transaction is to split assets, people and ownership between the two entities, with no overlap. The companies will now pursue separate strategies. Earlier this year Zivity launched the Top Fans product as a separate strategy for growth. The product lets fans create celebrity "fan pages," and then add content, such as images, video, and news, to those pages. It's been clear that the exec team and investors started to have diverging opinions on the future of the company since that launch. The founding team still believe strongly in the original vision. The newer execs and investors were pushing for the fan pages. The exodus of the founders was the likely outcome, but investors and senior employees worked to split the companies to pursue their separate destinies instead. Frankly, I'm amazed they pulled this off without litigation. Hats off to everyone, particularly the investors who consented to this. They likely could have killed the deal, retained all the remaining venture capital in Top Fans and forced the founders out. That didn't happen. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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| Groovy's SQL Switch: A Powerful Tool In The Quest For A Truly Real-Time Web
July 23, 2009 at 1:51 am
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|  The real-time web is shaping up to be the next online revolution, and as we saw during our RealTime CrunchUp earlier this month, it's already begun. But there are still some things that are holding us back — for one, many services still aren't actually real time, they're just something close to it. That may work well enough for sites like Facebook, but as we begin to see more innovation on this front, there's likely going to be much more demand for technology that is truly real time. Groovy Corp, a database software marker partially owned by Intel, thinks it has the answer: a relational data management system called the SQL Switch, which it says will make true real-time both affordable and feasible.
Groovy CEO Joe Ward stresses how important it is to make the distinction about what real-time really means, pointing out the fact that the vast majority of "real-time" content on the web really isn't holding true to the definition of the term. Instead, he says most services are "near-time", with delays that can range from a few seconds to a few minutes, which isn't going to cut it as more and more of these services become integral to the way we use the web. Ward also says that the key difference between near-time and real-time lies not only in the time lag seen with these services — after all, you can still get updates within a few seconds using the current methods — but in the way the current techniques interact with the server. Current methods of 'real-time' typically rely on frequent polling, where your browser continuously pings a server for any updates. This, Ward says, results in very high sever loads, with costs growing exponentially as the number of users increases. Conversely, Groovy's technique in the SQL Switch is akin to a 'Push' technology, where the server pushes the data without the need for the client to continuously poll for new information. This, in turn, leads to significant savings in server load by reducing the footprint on the application service fourfold, which also leads to a 20% saving in overall costs (you can see an estimate of the processing costs for the competing technologies below). The new software runs on special Intel boxes, with performance that the company says matches 100 standard SQL servers. For more, you can check out the full product spec sheet here.
Groovy offers a number of demos of the technology that are currently completing some final benchmarking, so you can't try them out just yet, but they will be available here by the end of the week. Among them is a real-time Twitter client, which accesses Twitter's API 20,000 times an hour. Of course, it's hard to tell just how powerful this technology will be until it's actually released. Fortunately, we won't have to wait long: Groovy will be making its debut, with benchmarked stats, at next week's AlwaysOn conference. Disclosure: Groovy Corp was a sponsor for the TechCrunch Real Time CrunchUp. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. 
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