We’ve known for a while that Google’s Knol is no Wikipedia killer, but now the knowledge-sharing site is being reduced to a sad Craigslist wannabe. The original idea behind Knol was that people could collaboratively write definitive articles about any topic they like and get rewarded by earning a share of the AdSense revenues for each page they author. Well, that model doesn’t work so well if nobody bothers to read the articles on Knol no matter how much search karma Google gives them. Quantcast estimates that only 174,000 people visited the site in the past month.
So what do you do if your Knol page isn’t throwing up enough AdSense pennies to make it worth your while? You try to sell a pair of stereo speakers directly to the few lost souls who somehow end up at Knol. Will Johnson, a self-described “professional genealogist and biographer,” decided to share his Knol-edge of a pair of “Bose 2.2 direct reflecting bookshelf speakers for sale”—his own (only $70). In fact, he started his own Knol Marketplace and bookstore.
While selling your junk on Knol is not necessarily prohibited by Google. Knol’s content policy seems to allows for commercial activity as long as it doesn’t drive traffic (and potential ad clicks) to another site. But a group of some of Knol’s top writers who actively police the site feel that it violates the spirit of the service. They don’t want Knol to become another Craigslist.
Sadly, Knol just never panned out. Google should just end its misery, just like it did when it killed other under-performing projects such as Lively and Google Notebooks. Knol will never come close to Wikipedia. It can’t even cut it as a classifieds listing site.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
By now, most businesses and self-employed individuals know that they can use social media services like Twitter and Facebook to help themselves grow their customer base and (hopefully) make some money. But for most people, actually using these services presents a challenge. Granted, there is no shortage of social media ‘gurus’ who have blogged their tips, but when it comes to finding ongoing instruction from genuine experts, the pickings have been slim.
Nick O’Neill , founder of the The Social Times, is looking to help. O’Neill is launching an educational program called the New Media School, which is setting out to help both companies and individuals most effectively take advantage of the businesses opportunities afforded by the web.
The school’s first course is the Social Media Marketing Program, which entitles participants to a number of text guides as well as a series of video lectures led by a solid roster of industry veterans. Each lecture will be streamed live via Livestream, and students in the program will be able to submit questions live via an integrated chat box. The course will begin in about a week and a half.
The school is charging $147 per month, and plans to offer new content on a rolling basis. For now, O’Neill is restricting the class size to 125. He explains that while the video lectures will be held via video stream (which presumably would have a much higher limit), he will be personally advising each participating company and indivdual through the course’s forums. There will also be virtual ‘office hours’ conducted through Livestream. O’Neill mentioned that he may consider offering alternative formats in the future (perhaps a video-only option without the one-on-one support), but the school is still in early stages so he’s eager to first see what people are interested in.
Here’s a full list of the program’s instructors:
Brad Feld - Co-Founder of Foundry Group and author of widely read venture capital blog Chris Bucchere - Founder of Social Collective Clara Shih - Author of "The Facebook Era" Craig Stoltz - Author of "Web 2.Oh…Really?", one of Time.com's Top 25 Blogs Dan Schawbel - Author of "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success" David Berkowitz - Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for 360i, author of the blog Inside the Marketer's Studio Debbie Weil - Author of "The Corporate Blogging Book" Don Steele - Vice President of Digital Marketing, MTV Networks Frank Gruber - AOL Product Strategist & Evangelist Harper Reed - CTO at skinnyCorp, Co-Founder of Threadless Hiten Shah - Co-Founder of KISSmetrics Jake Brewer - Engagement Director of Sunlight Foundation Jesse Thomas - Founder of JESS3 Jared Goralnick - Founder of Set Consulting Joe Suh - Founder and CEO of myChurch John Bell - Managing Director of Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence and President of WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) Leslie Bradshaw - Director of Engagement, New Media Strategies Mike Lazerow - CEO and Founder, Buddy Media Mike Volpe - VP of Inbound Marketing, HubSpot Neil Patel - Co-Founder of KISSmetrics Shashi Bellamkonda - Head of Social Media Strategy, Network Solutions Tamar Weinberg - Author of "The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web" Ted Leonsis - Owner, Washington Capitals, Chairman of Revolution Money, and Vice Chairman Emritus of AOL Tim O'Shaughnessy - Co-Founder & CEO, LivingSocial Victoria Ransom - Founder, Wildfire Interactive
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Another small sign that the worst of the recession may be behind us: IPO registrations are clawing their way back from the shadow of the valley of death (also known as the first quarter if 2009, when there were zero IPOs registered with the SEC). So far in July and August alone there have been 14 IPOs, as many as in the previous three quarters combined. These numbers and the chart above are based on the number of IPO filings tracked by Hoovers as of yesterday. Renaissance Capital counts 16 IPO registrations in July and August, and if you look on the SEC’s Edgar site it looks like a few more filed today.
Registering for an IPO doesn’t mean that the company is actually going to go through with it, but the volume of filings is a good confidence index for startups. Most of the companies filing are not technology-related (Hyatt Hotels, RailAmerica, Bayview Mortgage Capital), although Ancestry.com did file on August 3. In terms of actual IPOs, we saw five venture-backed companies start trading in the second quarter, including OpenTable, which is still trading above its $20 offering price.
All this means is that more companies are willing to take a shot at going public, which is encouraging in and of itself. But don’t expect the actual number of IPOs to recover for at least another year.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
As we’ve seen before, DVD Jon loves messing with Apple. And now he’ll get his chance in a major way. Jon Lech Johansen (better known as DVD Jon), the co-founder of doubleTwist, a company attempting to circumvent the iTunes/iPod ecosystem, has posted the subpoena he’s received to turn in documents related to Apple in an anti-trust case against them.
The subpoena (posted below), is basically a bunch of legal speak, but it’s pretty clear that the court is interested in obtaining any and all documents DVD Jon has that may be relevant to the case surrounding the legality of the entire iPod/iTunes ecosystem. Specifically, they are looking for documents from January 1, 2003 onward.
The key part is the last part:
IV. Document Requests
1. All communications with Apple concerning your efforts to make iPod inter-operable with digital audo and/or video recordings purchased from online stores other than the iTunes Store and/or your efforts to make digital audio and/or video recordings purchased from iTunes Store inter-operable with portable digital media players other than iPod, including, but not limited to, your efforts to circumvent and/or reverse engineer FairPlay.
2. All communication with Apple concerning the licensing of FairPlay.
3. All documents and communications concerning Apple’s attempts to prevent your efforts to circumvent or reverse engineer FairPlay.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about Steven Frank, a well-known Mac developer who was giving up his iPhone over his disgust with the ways Apple is managing the App Store. (This was right before Mike also gave up his iPhone). Well, Frank is already considering coming back. Why? Because once again Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller has extended an olive branch to try and calm the waters.
This follows Schiller emailing Daring Fireball’s John Gruber last week, also about issues with the App Store. But unlike Schiller’s email to Gruber, which was about a specific instance, his email to Frank seems as if it was a more general one. It’s hard to know for sure because Frank didn’t ask Schiller for permission to republish it (which Gruber did), but he did summarize parts of it.
Basically, it sounds like Schiller and others at Apple read this post by Frank, laying out what would have to change in the App Store in order for him to go back to using an iPhone. Frank says that Schiller took exception to the rumor that Apple had begun widely banning e-books, saying there was only one specific example where that was the case over a copyright issue. But Schiller did apparently acknowledge many of the other problems that Frank had with the store. As Frank summarized it, Schiller said, “we're listening to your feedback.”
Of course, the proof will be in the pudding, but it’s hard to take these two emails by Schiller as anything but a good sign. It’s still perplexing to me that one of Apple’s Senior VPs, basically the second or third best known guy at the company (it’s the same Phil Schiller than has run the past few keynotes in Jobs’ absence), is the one reaching out here after months of basically no communication from anyone else at Apple. Certainly, they have a PR team, I’m just not sure why Apple was forcing them to be silent, only to have an executive speak on the matter.
It’s great that Schiller is saying these things, so that he’ll be held accountable for them, but it’s kind of crazy that it has come to that. Clearly, Apple knows there are some very real problems with the App Store process. But the issue is now: How do they fix them?
Communication is the first step, but it will still be difficult to drastically overhaul the system that is already so massive and gaining size everyday. But I have to believe they’ll be able to do it. Too much money is on the line now with the iPhone for them not to.
To summarize what I wrote this weekend (so you don’t have to read all 3,500+ words — though, feel free to!), I think it’s foolish to think that Apple will just let these problems go on forever without fixing them. Some use the argument that they believe Apple has malicious intentions in trying to control the App Store. I have always believed that its screw-ups were simply a result of two things: 1) Its desire above all else to make a great product, which has lead to what many (including myself in a number of situations) consider to be perverse levels of controls. And 2) The fact that it had no idea the App Store would explode in popularity the way that it has. It wasn’t ready for it, and it has shown.
It’s time for Apple to step up and fix the App Store. And Schiller’s recent efforts seem to suggest that they’re ready to do just that. It’s when they’re not saying anything, that you really have to worry. Which they weren’t — for months.
The tough thing about being a startup is that no one is willing to share their numbers with you.
With that in mind, we’d like to announce the 2009 TechCrunch Web App Survey.
It’s an (optionally) anonymous survey where we can all share a bit of data about our userbase, traffic, financials and more. The more you’re willing to share, the more you’re going to learn from everyone else.
The whole goal of this project is to shed some light on a subject that very few people are willing to talk about it publicly. It will help web startups understand how they compare to other companies, and then make decisions accordingly.
Here are the Questions:
Number of active users
Average monthly revenue per active user
Time it took to acquire current number of active users
Average marketing cost to acquire each active user
Average monthly marketing spend
Average monthly page views to marketing web site (not web app)
Average monthly unique visits to marketing web site (not web app)
Percentage of monthly unique visits that convert to a paid account
Percentage of monthly page views that convert to a paid account
If you have a ‘Free Plan’, what percentage of your users are on it
Bootstrapped or funded
If funded, how much
If bootstrapped, how much was spent to build the product
Average monthly costs (overheads, salaries, marketing)
Average monthly revenue
Number of full time developers
Number of full time designers
Number of full time marketers
Number of full time managers
Number of founders
Total number of full time staff
Here’s How it Works:
We’re going to collect the data from Aug 11th - Sep 4th and then we’re teaming up with Carsonified to collate, sort and evaluate the data.
Carsonified will also be designing a full PDF report and website to showcase the findings, which will be available one week after my presentation at FOWA. The report will be completely free to view and download.
Let’s Get Started!
Just head over to this survey and fill it out. All form data will be kept strictly confidential on an individual basis, only the aggregate data will be released and we won’t disclose the names of the startups that participated.
Facebook is certainly pumping on all cylinders this week. Yesterday came news that the site had acquired FriendFeed, and this morning it proposed a new Terms of Service. Now Facebook has announced some additions to its API, including a new Mailbox API and support for Notifications in third party apps.
The biggest addition — the Mailbox API — is also disappointing because it only lets users receive messages, not send them. Facebook’s mail product has long been a sore spot for the site, though it has been slowly making some improvements (an overhauled version is currently in beta testing — we can’t wait). But aside from UI issues, there has always been the annoying fact that Facebook messages don’t work like true Email, as there is no way to handle your messages outside of Facebook itself. The new API is supposed to help change this.
Developers will now be able to tap into Facebook Mailboxes though the new API, giving them the ability to pull in a user’s Facebook messages. This means that you could conceivably use a desktop mail client to browse through your Facebook Mail. But because Facebook has only gone half way, developers have no way to send messages from their applications, which means users will have to log on to the site if they ever wish to send out a response. Facebook writes that “while we currently don’t allow applications to send messages through this API, we’re always thinking about new functionality to offer through Facebook Platform.” Lame.
The absence of a send function could possibly be attributed to the site wanting to gradually roll out the new API in multiple steps, which would be reasonable, if not a bit frustrating. But if we don’t see a send function included soon, it will be yet another knock against Facebook’s supposed openness.
Other new additions include a Notifications API, which gives developers access to the brief updates that typically show up in the bottom right hand corner of the Facebook homepage. Finally, the site is allowing developers to include application attachments in outgoing Facebook messages. They’ve been able to do this before, but the site now uses a more current API technique.
Today Facebook has posted a note to its blog indicating that it’s proposing an update to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities — one of the site’s documents that establishes user rights and Facebook’s Terms of Service. The post notes that these changes “mostly include clarifying changes and minor updates”, but there is at least one change that has some significant implications: Facebook users are banned from “using their personal profiles for their own commercial gain”, with selling status updates to advertisers explicitly being singled out as a violation.
This stands in stark contrast to Twitter, which permits (or at least, doesn’t actively discourage) so-called “Sponsored Tweets”, which typically include a link to an online store along with a tag indicating that a tweet was sponsored. The idea behind such updates is that users can share products they like with their friends and make money in the process, but it’s a system that can quickly devolve into a spam fest. With plenty of services in this space that include Izea and Magpie, the PayPerPost model is becoming disturbingly popular on Twitter.
Of course, Facebook offers Pages which do allow for commercially-sponsored updates. But the distinction between the two types of profiles are quite clear, and I don’t object to status updates from celebrities endorsing a product nearly as much as I would if it came from one of my friends who became overly-greedy.
One other significant change comes in the way Facebook regards users who are accessing the site from countries that the US has an embargo against. The current terms state that users “will not use Facebook if you are located in a country embargoed by the U.S., or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals.” Facebook has now revised this to only apply to commercial activities, with the new proposed terms stating:
We strive to create a global community with consistent standards for everyone, but we also strive to respect local laws. The following provisions apply to users outside the United States: 1. You consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. 2. If you are located in a country embargoed by the United States, or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals you will not engage in commercial activities on Facebook (such as advertising or payments) or operate a Platform application or website.
These changes are only proposals so far (Facebook users now have a week to submit their thoughts on the changes), but I’d be surprised if there are many objections.
One sidenote: Facebook is running its Governance section so that users can have their say regarding how the documents are written. But there’s apparently no way to see the diffs between each document — in other words, you have to put them side by side and look for any difference in wording manually. To make this even more frustrating, Facebook is arbitrarily inserting rules in the middle of numbered lists rather than adding new rules to the end. Fortunately Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt says that the company will look into addressing these issues, so they may well be resolved the next time the site proposes a change in its TOS.
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It is not often that a company waits ten years to take its first venture capital. MyWebGrocer, which was founded in 1999, raised $13 million today in a series A investment from the Stripes Group, a private equity firm in New York City. This is definitely a late-stage growth round. The company is already profitable. Stripes is a private equity firm that likes to invest later-stage growth companies, and there was even an investment bank involved (Montgomery & Co.) as an adviser to MyWebGrocer. Guess who wants to lead any eventual IPO?
MyWebGrocer, which is based in Vermont, was initially funded by its founder Rich Tarrant and then from operations as it grew to power the websites of 5,000 grocery stores across the country. Now it is looking to expand more aggressively, which is why it raised the series A.
MyWebGrocer runs websites on behalf of grocery chains and sells advertising to consumer packaged goods companies across all the sites, which collectively have a reach of 4 million shoppers. MyWebGrocer makes money both from fees paid by the grocery chains and a rev-share on the online ads. The Website scan be configured to simply show the week’s specials or include full online shopping modules, with the grocery store itself handling the delivery. In that sense it is a white-label version of Peapod, but with a highly-targeted ad network attached.
The grocery industry might be a niche, but it is a very large one. And its is an industry that is seemingly willing to outsource its Website operations to companies like MyWebGrocer.
Crunch Network: CrunchBasethe free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Everyone knows how hard it is to raise funding right now. But the European VC market has been even more abysmal than the US one of late, with first round fundings thin on the ground and down-rounds aplenty. So one startup has decided to jump ship from the VC merry-go-round and seek a ‘third way’ for itself.
Trampoline Systems, specialists in “social analytics” for companies, launched in the UK and the US last year but a search for a new $8 million round after an initial $5 million round in 2007 from Tudor Investments drew a blank (Tudor was hit badly by the crunch). So they turned to “crowdfunding” using a legally vetted web site to pull in investors - and the efforts are bearing fruit. Two weeks after launching the initiative they’ve now closed a $543,000 round.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
I’m still finding it a little hard to believe that Aaron Sorkin (he of A Few Good Men, he of The West Wing) is writing the screenplay for the upcoming Facebook movie. But not only is he, but upon hearing the proposal (based on Ben Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaires”), Sorkin claims it’s the fastest he’s “ever said ‘yes’ to anything.”
He claims he was just 3 pages into the 14-page proposal about the book, when he knew he would do it. But it gets better. “If you asked my why I said ‘yes’, I’m not sure that I can give you a clear answer,” Sorkin says.
Also crazy is that David Fincher (he of Seven, he of Fight Club) is still said to be in talks to direct it.
I’ve read Sorkin’s first stab at the screenplay, and it’s pretty good, entirely too long (it would be about a 2 hour and 45 minute epic if it were shot as-is), but pretty good. Could a movie about Mark Zuckerberg and crew actually be decent? It’s starting to look possible. “I’m having a lot of fun with it,” Sorkin concludes.
The video below is from the site MakingOf. As a side note, we love Sorkin because he wrote the words that inspired our best comment ever.
Crunch Network: CrunchBasethe free database of technology companies, people, and investors
We don’t know what is going on over at Nambu, but it doesn’t smell good. Today, just days after shutting down Tr.im and saying all support would cease at the end of the year, killing all the links shortened with the service, they have reversed course. “Nambu will keep tr.im operating going forward, indefinitely, while we continue to consider our options in regards to tr.im's future.”
The company cites the massive outpouring of pleas not to shut down the service as the reason behind the move. But here’s what we think is really going on. By shutting down the service and announcing that they would be completely dead in a few months, Nambu was ensuring that no one would use it. The problem with this is that they’re also trying to sell Tr.im, for between $80,000 and $100,000, we’ve heard from multiple sources. But everyone is balking at those prices. And with a non-working service, Nambu had absolutely no leverage.
So, the service is back and will operate “indefinitely” which is code for “until we can offload the site.” As they say in point number four on their blog post, “This was not a public-relations stunt. At all.” Sure, but it was an awful business decision — one that had to be reversed for any hope of a reasonable sale for them.
In their post today, they also make it very clear that they still blame Twitter for showing favoritism (Twitter uses Bit.ly as its default shortener), which led to the rash decision to shut off the service. We’ve also heard they were considering doing the same thing to their Twitter client over the same issue.
Nambu also notes that it won’t just offload the site to anyone:
We too want to see tr.im live on, but feel we can only transition it to another party committed to ensuring the links are not highjacked in any way. A contract for sale to an unknown group or individual simply cannot guarantee that.
This somewhat explains the multiple emails we’ve gotten from interested parties saying that Nambu is simply not responding to their inquiries about the sale. But a lot of these parties are reputable, so I’m not entirely sure what is going on over at Nambu. Perhaps they just didn’t want to engage some of these offers until the service was back on, and they had some leverage.
Does Google’s search results page feel a little more crowded to you? The ads which used to run down along the right-hand edge of the page are now shifted over to the left, as if to declare, “Hey, look at us!” Maybe this will increase the number of times ads are clicked on. They are certainly more noticeable.
The ads now seem like they are now grouped together with the organic results, whereas before they were shunted off to the side (a legacy of the early days of Google when the purity of organic results was protected as much as possible from being sullied by dirty ads). In fact, on my screen the ads take center stage, with a thin line down the middle forming the slimmest barrier separating them from the natural results. I wonder if this design change has something to do with the popularity of wider screens. But the line and central placement of the ads also conveniently draw the eye.
Is that what is most important now to Google? Don’t bother your mind with such silly questions. Google needs more clicks, and it shall have them.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
You post one shoe review and the runners come out of the woodwork. Take Racevine for example. This service allows you to search for and review races. We’re talking everything: Ironmans (Ironmen?), triathlons, marathons, sprints. All kinds of stuff. Want to know if the Wharf to Wharf run is worth racing? It’s there. The New York Marathon? Bango.
The real value here is in the search system. Say you’re bored and want to find a race in Ohio. Bingo. Right there. Sadly, there aren’t enough reviews on the site for the review portion to be much use just yet but that can change. Does the world need this service? Sure. Maybe you’re working on a PR or you want to do a 10K. Maybe you’re a big old lard butt like me and need to ease back into racing. Maybe you’re trying to find something close to the bar you frequent. The service is valuable in that respect. What it needs, I think, is a way to sign up for the races right online or a a connection to services like Active.com. However, for boy and girl racers of all stripes it’s nice to see everything all in one place. My real question is whether races need reviews. I know I show up to a race and just run it. I rarely pay attention to much else. It’s not quite a situation in which I’m paying much attention to the logistics or announcements. I think the adrenaline involved may just cancel out a lot of the qualitative judgements the racers may have, resulting in a bunch of fairly sparse reviews. Thoughts?
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Just as users and the entire Twitter developer ecosystem was getting back on its feet after last week’s multi-day outage, Twitter goes down again.
The outage last week, which was caused by a DDOS attack, started at around 6 am California time on Friday and went through the weekend. And even when Twitter had periodic uptime, third party apps were still shut down.
As usual, we provide a handy list of things to do while fretting about Twitter. Of course, you could choose to work, since it is the middle of a business day, but let’s not go crazy just yet.
Update: It’s back! Third party apps are still down, though. They always take the hard hit. And Twitter is calling this an “attack” - “Update (12:17p): We're back up and analyzing the traffic data to determine the nature of this attack.”
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
These days, more and more books have accompanying Websites and smart authors even try to attract readers online before the book is even published. Sometimes they even try to enlist those potential readers into contributing to the book (for free). Brooklyn food writers Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs are crowdsourcing their next cookbook on a site that just launched in private beta called Food52 (it will open up on September 15, but you can sign up now for an invite at the site). Hesser is a food critic for the New York Times and an author of several cookbooks (including Cooking For Mr. Latte, The Cook And The Gardener, and the upcoming New York Times Cookbook). Stubbs is a freelance food writer and recipe tester.
The Food52 project will result in its own cookbook to be published by the Harper Studio (which is also publishing the Gary Vaynerchuk ten-book library). Each recipe in the book will come from the Food52 community. “We want it to be a cooking site where the users feel that they have a voice,” Hesser tells me in her first interview about the project.
The site and the book will appeal to anyone who ever wanted to write their own cookbook but never had the time. But it won’t be a free-for-all. Hesser and Stubbs will make editorial decisions with give-and-take from the site’s members. To guide the community, every week two themes will be presented which will act as a call for recipes. This week’s themes (they are really assignments) are “Your Best Grilled Pork Recipe” and “Your Best Watermelon Recipe.” Anyone can submit their favorite recipes, along with photos or videos. Then Hesser and Stubbs select the most promising ones, test them, and choose the best two for each theme. They present these back to the Food52 members, who get to vote which one will make it into the cookbook.
“There is a huge tradition of community cookbooks, but none of them are user vetted,” says Hesser. Users can take part in creating the cookbook by submitting their own recipes and helping to edit the submissions through comments, ratings, and votes. (Recipes can be flagged if someone tries to pass one off as their own that is actually from another cookbook). Anybody who submits a recipe selected as one of the two finalist recipes each week will get a free copy of the book along with cookware tailored to their recipe.
The iterative process should bring hardcore foodies and fans of the authors coming back every week. By the end of the 52 weeks, Hesser and Stubbs will not only have the recipes for their cookbook, but also a built-in and built-up audience already sold on the book. It won’t be just a cookbook, it will be an artifact of their participation.
The site itself is designed less to be a comprehensive cooking site than a highly curated one. In addition to the contests, there are editors’ picks. You can browse by recipes (organized both by category and most recent) or by cooks (contest winners, most active, and “cooks we admire”). Of course, there is also a blog on the site written by Hesser and Stubbs, although that is not front and center and the first entry is about the shoes they wear while cooking. Not terribly appetizing.
Beyond the first book, Hesser and Stubbs hope to make Food52 into a food destination site. “Hopefully we will do more books,” says Hesser, “this is a starting point for gathering our community.” Food52 is owned and operated by Hesser and Stubbs through a company they co-founded called Burnt Toast, LLC funded with proceeds from the book advance. With any luck, the site will be worth more than the book.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Silicon Valley based job listing search engine Simply Hired is announcing profitability and a new round of financing - $4.6 million from new investor IDG Ventures and existing investor Foundation Capital. The company is also announcing four quarters of positive cash flow.
Phil Sanderson, managing director at IDG Ventures, joins the company’s Board of Directors. Simply Hired has now raised a total of $22.3 million.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Can Microsoft's latest Zune, the Zune HD, take down the king? It depends on which king you're talking about. As it stands, the iPod Touch is a whole different beast because of the App Store. What Microsoft has done with the Zune HD is nothing short of spectacular, but who is it really competing with? My BlackBerry can play videos and show me pictures taken on a recent trip. The HTC Hero and/or myTouch 3G can stream music from the likes of last.fm or Slacker. I can download MP3s from my iPhone. Everything the Zune HD does, I've been able to do with a slew of different devices that I already own. You see, the features that the Zune team has been touting don't interest me much. I don't really care to see an artist's bio, their pictures or anything of that nature. Sure, the modified IE browser is nice and works great, but I want to know how deeply integrated the Zune HD is going to be with other Microsoft devices like the Xbox 360. I don't need to fork over extra cash for an HD dock to stream 720p content onto my TV. I can already do that through my Xbox 360, FiOS and whatever content is stored on my NAS. Tell me what the plans are for the next six months. Tell me when the damn thing is actually going to launch.
You know that strange viral marketing campaign popping up around the Interwebs as of late? Well, we know what it means now thanks to GM's CEO Fritz Henderson and it's somewhat impressive - and a tad dubious. GM is claiming that under the new EPA guidelines, the Chevy Volt will hit 230 MPG. The Volt would be the first car to ever earn a triple digit number. Take a look at the current high-mileage kings and that 230 MPG rating really sinks in. The EPA handed the Prius a 51 MPG city ranking and the Insight a 41 MPG. The EPA says that the Ford Fusion hybrid can get 41 in the city and the Camary Hybrid 40 MPG in the city. With hyper-mileage tactics like killing the engine to coast down hills and fancy pedal work, a few obsessed drivers have pushed a few of these cars into triple digit territory.
For years you've been using the well-supported, ubiquitous file format called MP3. It's an international standard, it works just fine in every media player, and other universally-accepted formats are in place for the album artwork, lyrics, and what have you. Sounds like you're ready for a new, unified format that no one has ever heard of and, if introduced five or six years ago, might have been revolutionary! Universal, Sony, Warner, and EMI are all throwing their weight behind the CMX format, soon to be the laughing stock of the internet.Oh, did I mention that Apple, who makes like 200% of the MP3 makers in the USA, is making their own competing format, which pretty much guarantees that CMX will only be usable by things like Windows Media Player?
Seriously, these never get old. An enterprising soul has tonight re-created the pivotal Hitler scene from the movie Downfall, but done so with subtitles explaining why Hilter is so mad that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed.
This meme seems be done for just about everything on the web these days, but this one is particularly good because it’s full of good insider-y references. And it closely echoes some of the actual backlash against the news today which played out on FriendFeed.
Among the choice lines:
“It was a complete talent grab.”
“I even remember what it was like before Robert Scoble got here!”
“I used FriendFeed to argue about Obama and talk about health care, and to like tons of pictures from NASA that were awesome, not to spend my time posting pictures of bacon and talking about mangoes!”
“Of all the companies, they went with Facebook. They could’ve been acquired by Google and I would’ve been happy for them. Or even Twitter: That I could understand. But Facebook?! What the hell?!”
“Don’t worry, we still have Plurk.”
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Again, this is nothing but a very vague rumor for the time being, but it’s also very interesting. Following up on its iTunes 9 rumors, Boy Genius Report claims to have new details from the same trusted source about what iTunes 9, and specifically the social aspects of it, will entail.
As expected, the tipster says you’ll be able to broadcast songs you’re listening to out to various social networks. But the really interesting thing is the reference to some new social application that Apple is supposedly getting ready to launch. It’s not clear at all if this would be a desktop app or an iPhone app, but it is said to be something that consolidates your various social networking activity from around the web into one place.
Is Apple planning a FriendFeed-killer after Facebook has already essentially killed FriendFeed? That would certainly give the team a good reason to sell, if they caught wind of that. But who knows, it could be anything, or it could very well be nothing. Hopefully we all know by now how rumors, especially Apple rumors, work.
Regardless of what Apple has in store, if there are social elements added to iTunes, it will be a big move for the company. Right now, they basically have absolutely no social strategy beyond a bit of Facebook and Flickr integration in iPhoto. And yes, there are plenty of apps that use Facebook Connect, but that has basically nothing to do with Apple itself.
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Joshua Schachter is best known as the creator of Delicious. But a few years after he sold it to Yahoo in 2005, he left the company and joined Google. Since then, he’s been known to speak his mind about Delicious’ overall direction (which he doesn’t seem to like), and it’s pretty clear that he still has the desire to create. And that’s exactly what he did tonight, quietly launching a new service he’s developed called a tiny thread.
The idea is simple, take tweets and thread them together to form conversations, adding context. This works by using the a tiny thread site to both start new conversation threads, and add your comments to old ones. After authenticating via OAuth, your comment is then sent back to Twitter, with a link back to the a tiny thread conversation page.
The site’s look is sparse (not entirely unlike early Delicious), but it’s very easy to follow conversations. You can see a good example thread here. Right now, the threads only go one level deep, so it actually very much resembles a FriendFeed comment section. FriendFeed, was of course just bought today by Facebook, and its future is uncertain.
Other sites have attempted to thread tweets together in the past, but the results vary because of things like retweets that either break threads or add too much noise. Right now, it appears you can only add to these a tiny thread conversations on the site itself, so it works pretty well. But when you send the tweet back to Twitter, it just reads, “I joined a thread: is this thing on?” followed by a link to a tiny thread. It might be more interesting if it said what you actually said in the thread, enticing people to click on the link to read the full context.
It would seem that Schachter, who has been tweeting out links to this for about the past hour or so, did this on his own time, rather than his Google 20% time. Again, it’s extremely simple, but kind of interesting — especially in a post-FriendFeed acquisition world.
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Today Yellix, a self-funded mobile startup from Vienna hits the crowded mobile app market. Yellix offers an interesting way of connecting your Facebook friends with your mobile device. By installing the free Facebook application onto your cell phone your Facebook friends are matched with your cell contacts - in real time. There are a number of apps out there that do this, but few pull real-time info from Facebook.
It’s not entirely clear how this is done technically but the app runs on Android, RIM BlackBerry, Symbian or Windows Mobile platforms. When you get a call the app syncs with the Facebook app and immediately lets you see who is calling, their Facebook profile picture and the last status update of that person.
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New startup RXVantage is releasing a really smart SaaS product into a huge market - drug and medical device marketing.
Selling stuff to doctors is really big business - $60+ billion a year in the U.S. alone is spent annually in marketing to physicians by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. 175,000 reps visit offices and hospitals 110 million times per year to pitch their wares.
Today, pharma reps drop by offices in person just to schedule an office meeting with the physician down the road. They often do sample drops of medications and do a little pitching while the doctor signs for them. The average drop meeting lasts 22 seconds, for which a rep might wait up to 2 hours.
Top prescribers are visited by more than 100 reps per week, and meetings are scheduled as much as a year in advance.
Enter RXVantage.
RXVantage is “Open Table for doctors” - it’s web based scheduling software that doctors and pharma/medical device companies use to calendar those visits, manage appointments, etc. It’s free for all parties to use, and premium features are available to the marketers if they choose.
The company is just preparing to launch nationwide but has had a 2 year closed beta in Rhode Island and Massachusetts with 450 doctors and 400 reps from 75 different pharma companies. The results - 94% of the doctors pitched started using the system, and the average rep reported 4-5 more appointments per month.
The premium version of the software, which is $25/month/rep, allows those reps to get alerts on canceled appointments (and an opportunity to fill it), targeting of relevant doctors and other features.
The company has raised $1 million to date and is currently raising a second round of financing.
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We broke the news on Dell launching a China-only cell phone on Sunday, and today major Chinese news portal 163.com reports the device is on its way: What Dell will be offering in China is an Android-powered "Ophone" called the mini3i. China Mobile, the world's biggest carrier, will distribute the device and plans to launch it as early as "in the middle of this month" (which could mean any day this week). China Mobile plans to establish Ophone as a new brand and sell a number of devices from different makers under it. Apart from Dell, Lenovo and another Chinese company called Dopod [CN] (aka HTC) are expected to release Ophones in the next few days.
When most people are faced with the task of building their resume, they fire up Microsoft Word, trudge through a few generic looking templates, and export their page to HTML. Usually this results in something that’s either boring, weird looking (because of formatting issues), or just plain ugly. JobSpice, a new startup that’s launching tonight, is looking to help users build web-friendly resumes that are as good looking as they are easy to customize.
JobSpice comes with a good pedigree: it is part of the latest batch of Y Combinator funded startups, and is co-founded by Andrew McCollum — a Facebook co-founder who served as the social network’s original designer.
Of course, there are already plenty of ways to build your resume — aside from Word, there are a number of online services that will do it for a price, though founders McCollum and Dane Hurtubise say that these generally can be pricey, going for upwards of $100.
In contrast, JobSpice is free, and it goes a long way toward making resumes visually appealing with a minimum amount of effort. To do this, the site takes advantage of the naturally structured formatting of resumes and optimizes it for the web. JobSpice uses CSS to style the resumes it generates, which means you can totally rework the appearance of your resume with a minimal amount of effort (and experienced web designers will be able to tweak their resumes to their hearts’ content).
At launch JobSpice only has around ten designs available, but it’s allowing users and graphic designers to submit their own designs to the library, which will then be shared with everyone. For now all of these designs will remain free, through the company hasn’t ruled out offering premium designs at some point in the future.
Because of the modular design of each resume built by the service, JobSpice makes it easy to customize resumes for each person you send them to. Simply check off which sections you’d like to include in your resume depending on what an employer is interested in, and the site will generate a unique URL for that version of the resume. You can also easily export your resume to PDF.
To monetize, JobSpice has a few strategies in mind. In the short term, they’re going to offer premium features like custom domains. Further down the line, the company is hoping to use its service to streamline the hiring process, allowing employers to more effectively search through candidates and to help candidates find jobs. Given that there are obviously some very established sites in this space like Monster and CareerBuilder this is likely going to be quite challenging, though there is certainly still plenty of room for improvement on these.
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Search Engines are like sharks: If they stop moving, they die.
Okay, I’m not even sure if that’s really true about sharks. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s not. But still, it is true about search engines, in that they have to keep innovating and updating, if for nothing else to stay ahead of spammers. Google, as the king of search engines, obviously has been doing that constantly throughout the years. Some of the changes are noticeable, but most are subtle tweaks on a rolling basis.
But today, the company has begun testing a new engine for its search product that’s a big enough change that it felt compelled to let the world know about it. Codenamed “Caffeine”, it promises to “push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.”
The test, available here: http://www2.sandbox.google.com/, really doesn’t look any different at first glance. And Google notes as much, saying that these changes are primarily under the hood. When you hear that, most people will probably assume this means speed in showing results.
So is it any faster? It’s hard to tell. Most results on Google are already so fast, that shaving a nanosecond here or there hardly seems to matter. By Google’s own counter (which show up along the top of every Google result page next to the number of results), the results are mixed. Sometimes Caffeine wins, sometimes regular old Google wins.
But reading Google’s statement, it seems that by “indexing speed” they may mean the speed at which they index pages behind the scenes, putting them in the results. It’s difficult to test that immediately, it seems like something you may start to notice over time as content comes in faster.
One thing I do notice is that across the board, Caffeine seems to have more results in its index than regular Google does. But it’s hard to tell if that really matters since most people never get to the end of the millions of results for items (and for most, in fact, you can’t).
In terms of actual results, they seem to be mostly the same. Doing the same search on each, a few results change positions, and some different ones appear, but it’s largely the same for the words I tested.
Google’s Matt Cutts worked on the project and has a Q&A on his own blog that is interesting. Here’s my favorite part:
Q: Is this Caffeine Update because of Company X or Y is doing Z? A: Nope. I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months. I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we've done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward. Nobody cares more about search than Google, and I don't think we'll ever stop trying to improve.
To me that brings to mind two companies immediately: Twitter and Bing. Those are the two services doing the most interesting things around search right now that could potentially challenge Google. But the Google team claims it has been working on this project in secret for the past “several months,” so if you believe that, it stands to reason that this at least probably isn’t a direct response to Bing, which is newer.
And I like that answer. Too many companies focus on directly going after competitors by doing exactly what they’re doing, or attempting to. With Caffeine, it doesn’t appear Google is trying to do that, but instead is just trying to improve what it already does well. Of course, you can have that luxury when you’re the king.
I do wonder though if Google doesn’t do anything to change the appearance of its results, even if those changes are meaningless (adding more pictures, etc), if users won’t perceive that its rivals are out-maneuvering it. Still, better results cannot hurt, especially as some tests suggest that the rivals may be catching up to Google in that regard.
Google is doing this public test now to get feedback from users, presumably before deploying it into wide release on google.com.
Last month we reported that Silicon Valley based Ooyala, a service that manages video streaming for websites, was looking for a new CEO to take the business to the next level. Today they’ll be announcing that new CEO - former Agile Software CEO Jay Fulcher is now the CEO of Ooyala, and his first day on the job was today.
Founding CEO Bismarck Lepe will remain on board as President of Product Strategy.
From my post last month:
And now they're considering the hire of a new CEO, we've confirmed. Bismarck Lepe, the current CEO, says he's actually been looking for his replacement for the last year. This isn't being driven by the venture investor, Sierra Ventures, he says. And in fact the founding team retains stock and board of directors voting control, making their consent a requirement of any CEO change. Lepe just feels as though he isn't necessarily the guy to take the company to the next level, whatever that may be. So he's retained a search firm to find someone better than him to run Ooyala.
The company is certainly doing well. We first covered them in late 2008 and they already had big name customers like National Geographic, TV Guide, AOL, and Warner Brothers. Today, Lepe says, they stream 250,000 - 350,000 hours of video a day through partners. One Michael Jackson video last week racked up 70 million views in just 36 hours.
Here’s a video with the whole exec team, including Fulcher:
Update: The press release:
Mountain View, CA– Ooyala, the leading provider of end-to-end video platform applications and services, today announced the appointment of Jay Fulcher as President & Chief Executive Officer. Former CEO and Co-Founder Bismarck Lepe, who led the company since its inception in early 2007, has been appointed President of Product Strategy, reporting to Fulcher.
Most recently, Fulcher served as President & CEO of publicly held Agile Software, where he helped establish Agile as a market leader as it became the fastest growing product lifecycle management (PLM) company in the industry. Fulcher led the sale of Agile to Oracle in late 2007. Prior to Agile, Fulcher spent five years at PeopleSoft, where he led the transformation of PeopleSoft’s $1+ billion global services organization after being President of its $400 million Products Division. Prior to PeopleSoft, Fulcher held senior executive positions at Red Pepper Software and SAP.
“Jay brings the necessary experience, track record and passion to lead our company. We are extremely pleased to have attracted a CEO of Jay’s caliber to Ooyala,” said Bismarck Lepe, co-founder of Ooyala. “He will have an immediate impact on our aggressive plans for growth.”
"I am really excited to be joining Ooyala during this period of hyper-growth,” said Jay Fulcher. "Online video is an increasingly fast growing and strategic market, as traditional and new media channels finally converge. Ooyala is well positioned to not only be the industry's best video platform, but to provide the most personalized video experience to consumers and the most lucrative monetization platform to content owners. Ooyala’s innovative products and customer-centric philosophy will enable the company to become the leader in this market." Fulcher was attracted to Ooyala because of its focus on developing game-changing technology and the impact IP-based video will have on the future. “IP-based video is now a powerful reality and with that comes opportunities to better target advertising and deliver the content consumers want on their terms,” said Fulcher.
Ooyala already has over 500 global media and enterprise customers including Warner Brothers, Electronic Arts and Sybase. “Ooyala has been able to grow faster than any other Online Video Platform company because of its focus on technology, customer success and personalization,” added Fulcher. “I am excited by the prospect of taking that early success and leveraging it to build a large, innovative and profitable business.”
Fulcher will join Ooyala and become a member of the Board of Directors, immediately.
Embeddable Video: Introduction & FAQ with Ooyala Founders and New CEO: http://www.ooyala.com/blog
About Ooyala Inc. Ooyala is a video technology company that provides a comprehensive software platform enabling the delivery, management, and monetization of high quality online video content. Its innovative analytics engine and monetization server allows for video content owners to maximize the value of their content. Ooyala’s partner portfolio includes over 500 enterprise and media companies including Warner Brothers, Wenner Media, Fremantle, Armani, Sybase and Electronic Arts.
For more information please visit www.ooyala.com.
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As we’ve seen before, DVD Jon loves 
A few weeks ago, we wrote about Steven Frank, a well-known Mac developer who was 
The tough thing about being a startup is that no one is willing to share their numbers with you.
Facebook is certainly pumping on all cylinders this week. Yesterday came news that the site had 
Today Facebook has posted a note to its 
Everyone knows how hard it is to raise funding right now. But the European VC market has been even more abysmal than the US one of late, with first round fundings thin on the ground and down-rounds aplenty. So one startup has decided to jump ship from the VC merry-go-round and seek a ‘third way’ for itself. 
I’m still finding it a little hard to believe that Aaron Sorkin (he of A Few Good Men, he of The West Wing) is writing the screenplay for the upcoming Facebook movie. But not only is he, but upon hearing the proposal (based on Ben Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaires”), Sorkin claims it’s the fastest he’s “ever said ‘yes’ to anything.”
We don’t know what is going on over at Nambu, but it doesn’t smell good. Today, just days after 
You post 
Silicon Valley based job listing search engine 
Can Microsoft's latest Zune, the Zune HD, take down the king? It depends on which king you're talking about. As it stands, the iPod Touch is a whole different beast because of the App Store. What Microsoft has done with the Zune HD is nothing short of spectacular, but who is it really competing with? My BlackBerry can play videos and show me pictures taken on a recent trip. The HTC Hero and/or myTouch 3G can stream music from the likes of last.fm or Slacker. I can download MP3s from my iPhone. Everything the Zune HD does, I've been able to do with a slew of different devices that I already own. You see, the features that the Zune team has been touting don't interest me much. I don't really care to see an artist's bio, their pictures or anything of that nature. Sure, the modified IE browser is nice and works great, but I want to know how deeply integrated the Zune HD is going to be with other Microsoft devices like the Xbox 360. I don't need to fork over extra cash for an HD dock to stream 720p content onto my TV. I can already do that through my Xbox 360, FiOS and whatever content is stored on my NAS. Tell me what the plans are for the next six months. Tell me when the damn thing is actually going to launch. 
You know that strange viral marketing campaign popping up around the Interwebs as of late? Well, we know what it means now thanks to GM's CEO Fritz Henderson and it's somewhat impressive - and a tad dubious. GM is claiming that under the new EPA guidelines, the Chevy Volt will hit 230 MPG. The Volt would be the first car to ever earn a triple digit number. Take a look at the current high-mileage kings and that 230 MPG rating really sinks in. The EPA handed the Prius a 51 MPG city ranking and the Insight a 41 MPG. The EPA says that the Ford Fusion hybrid can get 41 in the city and the Camary Hybrid 40 MPG in the city. With hyper-mileage tactics like killing the engine to coast down hills and fancy pedal work, a few obsessed drivers have pushed a few of these cars into triple digit territory. 
For years you've been using the well-supported, ubiquitous file format called MP3. It's an international standard, it works just fine in every media player, and other universally-accepted formats are in place for the album artwork, lyrics, and what have you. Sounds like you're ready for a new, unified format that no one has ever heard of and, if introduced five or six years ago, might have been revolutionary! Universal, Sony, Warner, and EMI are all throwing their weight behind the CMX format, soon to be the laughing stock of the internet.Oh, did I mention that Apple, who makes like 200% of the MP3 makers in the USA, is making their own competing format, which pretty much guarantees that CMX will only be usable by things like Windows Media Player? 
Seriously, these never get old. An enterprising soul has tonight re-created the pivotal Hitler scene from the movie Downfall, but done so with subtitles explaining why Hilter is so mad that Facebook has 
Again, this is nothing but a very vague rumor for the time being, but it’s also very interesting. Following up on its 
Today 
We broke the news on 
Search Engines are like sharks: If they stop moving, they die.
Last month 
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