Netvibes quietly released an updated look and feel this evening. Read about the release on the Netvibes blog here and here. Key additions to the service include: Module search New web/blog /video search with results within netvibes Customization of look and feel MySpace module Netvibes says in their blog entry that the new release “will change the way you use and view the web” and includes user interface enhancements as well as a bunch of new modules. Putting the question of whether or not this update is as significant as the blog post suggests aside, Netvibes has certainly had a big impact on its users. They have collected over 5 million passionate users and $15 million in venture capital during its brief year of existence. Netvibes is one of the sites that has stuck with me as others come and go, and I visit it at least daily. I’ve created Netvibes modules for most of the web services I use and it has become the gateway to those services and sites. The site is fast, clean and contains to advertisements. Like Google search, the best thing about Netvibes is that it has no problem with me quickly leaving the site to take care of other business. And that’s why it’s earned my loyalty as a user. → Read More
, which gives weight to the idea that T-Mobile is not just growing, but completely reinventing itself. And that is good. Why, you ask, is it good that the anemic T-Mobile is going to be reborn? → Read More
Somehow, in the avalanche of new phones and accessories this week, we missed this dope new FM Transmitter for Sony-Ericsson phones. Seeing as how they’re aggressively going after the mobile music market, this little gadget makes perfect sense. It plugs into the bottom of your favorite SE phone and transmits your tunes to your car stereo. In addition, it turns your sound system into a full-on speakerphone, on the cheap. The 3.5mm headphone jack at the front means it works as a lapel remote, too. Neat! It works with current SE phones and will only set you back $45. Not a bad deal considering everything that it does. Music Phone FM Transmitter: Sony-Ericsson [Brando] → Read More
At first glance the iBag Turntable looked very cool, but that reaction wore off as soon as I realized that it doesn’t really use vinyl. What you really have here is a backpack that you can connect your iPod to. With four AA batteries you can also play your iPod through the backpack’s speakers. The backpack includes a FM radio, and retails for $60. I have yet to hear (or see) someone playing music through their backpack’s speakers. Here in San Francisco, we still use boom boxes on our shoulders for being obnoxious. iBag Turntable [shiny shiny] → Read More
Read these exciting stories before our planet is engulfed by the sun: The Elite Cuisine Multi-Function 3-in-1 Breakfast Center USB Roll-Up Keyboard High Tech Karaoke GPS Could Be Disabled By Solar Flares In 2011 Japanese Power Suit Makes You Super Human → Read More
LiveJournal just announced that they will soon begin offering sponsored communities with benefits to participating users and sponsored features provided by companies other than LiveJournal. The SixApart owned social networking site has slowly rolled these plans out over recent months but just made the official announcement tonight. Early feedback from users is decidedly negative. Update: Here’s the newest from the company on this, it appears that they backed down on much of the original plans. Sponsored communities will be groups sponsored by advertisers who are offering group members things like exclusive movie trailers, behind-the-scenes footage, travel advice, tips and tricks, special deals. It’s funny, I thought most of that was already freely available all over the internet. There is some potential here, and this is an increasingly common direction for social networks to move in, but it will be a difficult strategy to pull off in a compelling way. The second part of the plan seems much more viable. Sponsored features will be technical add-ons that LiveJournal hasn’t offered its users so far. The first will be an SMS integration service sponsored by Amp’dMobile. This make some sense and it will be good to see what kind of creative features are provided by partners. Two concerns that arise: the baby could get thrown out with the bath water in that users could be so upset at seeing their alternative to MySpace growing increasingly ad driven that they don’t care about the ad sponsored special features. LiveJournal offers paid accounts already and some users will undoubtedly feel that if they’ve paid for an account, they don’t want to see ads. The new sponsored SMS service, though, will be available only to paid members. That makes sense to cut down on abuse, but we’ll see how those users respond to both paying and seeing ads. With social networking sites becoming either a dime a dozen or worth a billion dollars, depending on how you look at it, there’s an interesting balance being sought between the need to profit and the need to keep allegedly fickle users happy. A second concern is that the sponsored features strategy seems to conflict with the spirit of open APIs. LiveJournal uses not the MetaWeblog API or the Blogger API, but one of its own. It’s been praised as good to work with, but not a lot of people apparently do. Is there some kind of artificial → Read More
Online photo sharing and printing service Shutterfly raised $87 million in an IPO today, closing up 3.7% at $15.55 per share. VentureBeat points out that the price climbed as high as $16.73 at one point in the day. Born in 1999, Shutterfly is a survivor of the last bubble and crash. Now it’s an interesting case for considering other possible valuations. It also gives us a chance to look at what a company with a successful IPO took to market. For comparison, Flickr is rumored to have been acquired by Yahoo! for $30 to $35 million. After J.P. Morgan, Piper Jaffray and Jefferies sold 5.8 million of Shutterfly’s 23.6 million shares, the company ended the day with a market value of more than $350 million. With about 200 employees it had just under a 34% net profit margin on about $84 million in revenue last year. The company has taken $67 million in VC backing to date. NetScape co-founder Jim Clark, and Shutterfly board chair, bought about 30% of the stock sold today. In a time when IPOs are among the least common liquidity events enjoyed by Web 2.0 startups, for a photosharing site to remain independent and go public is interesting relative to all the startups we profile here. Shutterfly is a company that has lots of overhead, faces price cuts from competitors and has no shortage of small startups seeking to edge into its market. It makes much of its revenue from shipping and faces questions around scalability. There’s some interesting analysis over at MrWaveTheory. While Shutterfly offers more than 150 print and DVD products, photo to print startups like OneTrueMedia, Tabblo and Scrapblog offer more sophisticated design capabilities, more viral online distribution and in some cases prominent media partners. Most photo sharing sites online now allow users to print or burn to DVD their archives, though few of them base their entire business model on printing as Shutterfly does. What does Shutterfly offer in user experience? A product that clearly appeals to mainstream users. Unlimited free storage. Good bulk uploaders for both Windows and Mac (though not Intel Mac). Public and private albums. Group collaboration on shared collections. Clean URLs, comments on photos, basic crop, border, red eye removal and color change effects. They’ve also got business solutions for resellers. Its primary competitor, HP’s SnapFish, offers much of the same feature set plus mobile upload by email. → Read More
, Apple rolled out a second generation of the iPod Nano, bringing the high-end of their tiny player up to 8GB. It was widely assumed Creative would do the same, and today it has announced an 8GB version of their Zen V Plus, their direct Nano competitor. The Zen series is a very popular alternative to the iPod here in America, and the OLED screen looks fantastic. It’ll be available next month for S$429 ($270 US) in Singapore, and roll out to the States shortly thereafter, probably at the $249 price point, but don’t quote us on that. Zen V Plus [Creative] → Read More
I’m a bachelor. I have been now for 30 years. As such, I’ve learned to use my kitchen to best afford me single portions. I don’t shop at Costco, I don’t need a gallon of mayonnaise. This is the price I pay. Also, my kitchen is, not by coincidence, small. As such, I need to conserve space. That’s why I can’t believe I’ve never seen this device before. The Elite Cuisine Multi-Function 3-in-1 Breakfast Center is amazing. It makes your coffee. It toasts your bread. It keeps your breakfast hot as you get the finishing touches ready. This thing looks amazing, and is totally the kind of thing I get for Xmas. If I don’t have one of these under my tree, it will be a sad holiday indeed, as it’s only $34.99 from Target. Added bonus: try saying its full name without sounding like a late-night infomercial jackass. Joy! Elite Cuisine Multi-Fucntion 3-in-1 Breakfast Center [Target] → Read More
We don’t have much DAB here in the States. Thanks to our various satellite radio providers, iPods, cellphones and everything else giving us more music than we really need. Other continents have it though, so we’re showing off this neat USB DAB tuner. Plug it in, install the DAB software on your PC, and you’ve got your radio, wherever you go. You don’t even need that pesky WiFi or EVDO or anything, it’s all digital. Hopefully someday we’ll get DAB over here. Until then, you Brits can pick this up for £49.95 ($91 US). The included software even has preset record features, channel memory, and auto-scanning. Slick. PC DAB Radio [Gizoo.co.uk] → Read More
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, told ABC News today that he will be in New York on Nintendo Wii launch day and will hand out some of the first Wiis at a store. The store remains unnamed, but it’s rumored that he will be at Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Center. Nintendo claims to feel more connected to its gamers than other console manufacturers, and this is a great way to show that connection. You won’t see Sony handing out $600 dollar systems at the Metreon. Nintendo is holding its ground stating that, they don’t believe gaming is all graphics and that the average gamer doesn’t have high definition equipment anyway. Whatever spin Nintendo puts on it, the bottom line is: Free Wiis! EDIT: You guys were right – he’s just “handing” them out. No free Wii Units for New Yorkers. Free Nintendo Wiis [gamespot] → Read More
We are totally glad we don’t work at HP. Not only is Dunn out the door, but yesterday and today, the embattled woman was forced forced to defend her company’s illegal actions to the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. And they’re grilling her good. At the heart of the conflict are allegations of Pretexting, a sneaky, not to mention illegal, way of getting private records. Investigators in the employ of HP used this method while trying to find a leak on the board of directors who was giving information to CNET reporters. A number of high-level HP employees have resigned and taken their Fifth Amendment right to not self-incriminate themselves. This means that either Dunn told these people what to do, or that they were working without Dunn’s knowledge. Dunn is saying that prior to all these shenanigans, she’d never heard the word “pretexting.” Either way, HP’s brass knew what it was doing, and they knew that it was illegal. The story hasn’t finish writing itself, however, so stay tuned. Dunn Grilled by Congress [C|Net] → Read More
Yahoo has released a new product called BBAuth just in time for its open HackDay today and tomorrow. It’s a mechanism for non-Yahoo applications to access Yahoo’s authentication mechanism and user data in a secure manner. Most mashups today do not access personal data because of the security issues (not to mention the fact that companies usually think of user data as proprietary). The classic mashup example is mixing Google or Yahoo maps with other data. But there are far fewer examples of mashups involving user data protected from the rest of the Internet via a sign-in procedure. BBAuth fixes that problem when it comes to accessing data locked up at Yahoo. Using the tools Yahoo provides, non-Yahoo applications can request a user to sign in to Yahoo and give permission for Yahoo user data to be sent to the non-Yahoo application. Yahoo’er Dan Theurer explains how it works in more detail, and points to two test applications he created. The first shows how it can be used to allow sign in via Yahoo credentials, and the second shows how you can access Yahoo photos data outside of Yahoo. There are two pieces to BBAuth. The first is a single sign on tool to authenticate the user. The second piece is a set of APIs to get into specific Yahoo services and interact with user data. For example, the Yahoo Photos API allows other applications to, among other things, upload photos, tag photos, and modify titles and descriptions. Yahoo is also opening up Yahoo Mail through BBAuth. Dave Winer says this is a “huge deal” and I agree. See what Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny says about BBAuth as well. It’s worth noting that Amazon is doing the same thing (but in a limited way) with it’s S3 storage product, and eBay is supposedly testing third party authentication for purposes of verifying (but not changing) user feedback ratings. → Read More
Here’s something that could be handy for on the go musicians. The USB roll-up keyboard features 49 keys, 128 instruments, 100 prerecorded rhythms. And you know, it also rolls up. There hasn’t been much use of the roll up keyboard. Some musicians are on the go all the time with Logic Pro 7 or Pro-Tools. Both those programs are heavily MIDI-based, and usually used by electronics musicians everywhere they go. With the new USB support you can have a MIDI controller everywhere you are. Since the keys don’t look push-sensitive you’re going to loose certain humanization features such as velocity, but you can always edit something like this in the program. The keyboard runs $46.00, so the onboard stuff probably sounds like crap. But with all the features a program like Logic Pro 7 has, you wouldn’t be using many of a keyboard’s onboard features anyway. USB Roll-Up Keyboard [the red ferret journal] → Read More
It was announced today that Intel has reached an agreement with Nokia to embed an HSDPA connectivity module on its Centrino Duo. Intel will handle all elements of production, from hardware implementation to software development. It’s an exciting time for mobility. Just five years ago, options like this were essentially science fiction and now we’re on the cusp of a legitimately wireless world. It really is about time that we shed the shackles of ethernet cables once and for all. Nokia and Intel Team for Wireless Broadband [Digital Trends News] → Read More
. Nothing fancy, but it’ll get you started. If you really want to use your Zune like a pro, you’ll need some add-ons, and Amazon is, of course, more than happy to sell them to you. They’re already featuring preorder pricing on a wide range of accessories, from wireless remotes (via WiFi?) to travel packs, and our first look at the round Zune Dock. A couple of secrets new things come out here, such as the very iPod-esque A/V Output Cable. It would seem that, like the current iPod, the Zune can play back video to your TV apparently through the headphone jack, as well. This is something we’ve been wondering about, but now we know for sure. Zune Accessories [Amazon] → Read More
IBM and Xing announced today that they have come together to release a new high tech karaoke controller that will allow users to take karaoke with them throughout Japanese restaurants and karaoke bars. The Kyoku NAVIs features a touch screen interface, allows users to search for songs in a simplified fashion and has wireless LAN for updates and streaming videos. The controller is also waterproof (for all that “water” you’re going to spill on it at the bar) and shock resistant. It looks as though you’ve got to connect the NAVIs to another karaoke system (screen and speakers) for it to work. This sort of takes the novelty out of going to a karaoke bar and doing embarrassing songs in front of all your friends and public alike. I know I vouched for the iPod Karaoke before, but that was designed for the comfort of your own home. The Kyoku NAVIs just seems a little bit ridiculous. But hey, we all saw “Lost In Translation,” maybe Japan does need something like this for karaoke lovers to carry around. Maybe. Either way, it feels as though IBM is running on empty here. There is also another model of the controller, the Kyoku NAVII, which features all the same things as the NAVIs, but can wirelessly order drinks and food to whichever restaurant it’s connected to. What? Japan must really be technologically advanced if we’re still doing the ol’ paper and writing thing over here. Xing’s Kyoku-NAVIs [ibm technology] → Read More
JVC is giving us a new HD camcorder on October 3, part of their Everio series. You’ll forgive our lack of details, but there aren’t many, and those we do have are in Japanese. We do know that this compact little shooter can capture all the action of that brawl on the sidelines of your son’s soccer game in 1080i, and can be fitted with the new FUJINON 10x optical zoom lens for real, pro-type video action. And apparently, it can also turn into a steam-powered robot to battle these Gumby-like aliens, but that’s conjecture based on what we’ve read and our two credits worth of Japanese at the community college down the hill. JVC also knows tapes are so 2006, so they’ve outfitted the Everio with an internal hard disk. Chances are it’ll be swappable, and as current JVC HD camcorders top out at 30GB, look for it to include something in that capacity range. Prototypes will be available for the press at the Japanese CREATEC convention next week, so we expect more news on this guy at that time. With luck, we’ll see it stateside sometime early next year, probably late Q1. JVC Everio [Impress.co.jp, translated via Babelfish] → Read More
It was just announced that DAG Ventures is leading a $15 million B round for Podshow. News got out yesterday and though the investors weren’t named until today, disbelief was the widespread reaction. DAG saw its investment in Grouper, which was presumably much smaller, pay off last month when the video sharing service was acquired by Sony for $65 million. The fund also participated in a $10 million funding in Friendster last month after the company secured a controversial patent. Other investments in the DAG portfolio include SpikeSource and Zimbra. Podshow assures me that they have a plan to be more than a podcasting company, they intend to be a media company. They want to be a primary enabler of what they believe will be the dominant theme in media in the future when much of the content consumed by audiences will be produced by other media consumers. Here’s some details to chew on for now, according to Podshow co-founder Ron Bloom. Podshow has had between 35 and 40 global brand advertisers over the last year. They have over 1000 shows on the network but wouldn’t discuss revenues. The company has partnerships with Sirius Satellite Radio, AOL (details still hazy on this one) and this month announced a partnership with British Telecom (see TechCrunch UK coverage). Podshow plans next to move into more mobile devices and into the home. Bloom tells me that the BT deal, in which Podshow will provide both audio and video in BT’s attempt to radically remake itself, is a model of the direction the company hopes to move in. This round brings Podshow’s funding to over $23 million. Is this wise? I have a hard time believing that the fund would invest in Podshow, and that Podshow would take the money, without some good information regarding the company’s plan to become a substantial media player. If they can continue landing big sponsorships and partnerships then I think we may see the critics proven wrong. While other user generated content companies struggle with legal issues and advertising, Podshow is a real contender to be a leading new media company in a changing industry landscape. → Read More
T-Mobile’s had a busy September, popping out four new Samsung handsets and the RIM BlackBerry Pearl. As an end of the month celebration of sorts, Infosync World put together a tidy little roundup of all the phones, including the Trace aka SGH-T519, which we have a little video of via sister-site CrunchGear. Sadly, it looks like none of these phones will reach any sort of legendary Motorola RAZR-type status and moreover, they all seem to be a tad on the meh-side of things. This is particularly the case for the Pearl, because while it’s the smallest, lightest BlackBerry around, and the only one with a camera, its business roots show the second you hit the submenus. Coming soon: New and upcoming T-Mobile phones [InfoSync World] → Read More
