Flixster, a San Francisco based social network where users rate and discuss movies, closed a round of financing today with LightSpeed Ventures. This was a small round of financing – $2 million or possibly less, but there was apparently heavy competition from Sequoia Capital in the deal (and possibly Kleiner Perkins). Flixster has recently seen very heavy user registration and page view growth, so a sub-$10 million valuation, which this deal almost certainly was, could be considered quite cheap. There are also rumors that major studios got involved in the Flixster bidding as well, either as an investment or an outright acquisition. Look for an announcement in the coming weeks. Update: Comments from founders in the comments (on their way to Aruba apparently) confirming the deal, and traffic stats in this post. → Read More
ConvinceMe is a new competitive arguing site launching tonight. It will let debaters carry out public debates, head to head arguments, and a “King of the Hill” free for all about any subject they like. Other argument sites, like Hot Soup and LoveToLead, have focused on sobering issues, like political or philosophical debates and polls. Comment threads and forums have also been great places for people to argue. Just look at the comments for Do the Right Thing. ConvinceMe lets members talk about anything and ranks them based on how many “convince” points they get from user voting for their argument. Private debates are issued as public challenges from one member to another and end when one site has gained the agreed number of votes for their side. For public debates, each side’s arguments are ordered by the number of votes the arguments have. “King of the Hill” is a twist on the challenge debate, with each member only able to submit one argument for their position. The first argument with 100 votes wins. The final type, public debates are ongoing, with the votes for one side or the other marking the overall opinion of the community on the subject. Apparently pirates are better than ninjas right now. However, it wasn’t “Ask a Pirate” that allegedly pulled in over 300K last year. IntenseDebate.com is another debate site under development as noted in the TechCrunch Forums. Update: ConvinceMe has resolved the sign-up issues. → Read More
Vizu Answers announced a $2.9 million round of financing today for its poll based market research, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Marketers can conduct self-serve polling campaigns by designing a poll, picking a demographic, and having it syndicated to relevant publishers’ sites, who get a kick-back for listing the poll by CPM varying by placement on the page. It’s like poll-based AdSense. Publishers can set a minimum CPM for the types of polls they’re willing to show in that poll zone. Sites that run a series of diagnostic demographic polls for their users can command higher rates. You can see some sample polls here. It seems odd that Vizu pays on an impression basis, when the value to marketers comes from voting, although both methods are subject to fraud. Vizu does track click-through rates for each site and provide this data to marketers planning campaigns. When there isn’t a poll matching the contextual profile of the site (CPM rate, demographic, and textually), Vizu fills the space by running a poll that relates to the page’s text to keep readers accustomed to the feature. → Read More
. Verizon Wireless customers who sign up for Verizon local and long-distance will receive unlimited calling between their phones and other on-network customers, from their mobiles or home phones. This is an incentive for Verizon users to unify their communications packages into what VZN is calling Freedom ONE-BILL (their caps, not ours). In addition to landline and mobile calling, the packages include DSL. In all, this is the only real way that the phone companies can compete head-to-head with the cable companies, and as there are substantial savings inherent in these packages, they’re win/win for consumers, for the most part. The only reservation we have is that it does take some choice away from the consumer, something we’re very against. ONE-BILL [VZN] → Read More
We wrote about Chestnut Hill Sound’s George iPod speaker dock back at the beginning of the month. Our review unit arrived today, so we decided to pop the box open and take some shots. There are a handful of features that separate George from the rest of the speaker-dock herd. Click below to see more pictures and learn about what makes this system so different. → Read More
Nokia, bless your heart. We like that you make fairly stylish and sophisticated cellphones that are easy to use and have some power to them. We also like what you’re doing with Symbian, especialy S60. But, c’mon, the N-Gage? Still? We give you credit for dumping the idea of a game-optimized device, sure. Your idea for making N-Gage a game platform that sits atop your N-series phones is a good one. That way, no matter which N-series phone you have, you can have your choice of games. But are you going to go for high-end graphics and music? Do you think in the world of the Nintendo DS and PSP that people want more than Solitaire on their phone? Apparently so, as you’ve got plans to announce your platform at the GDC meeting in Madrid next week. That’s the word on the street, anyway. If you do, well, we’re not sure what to think. But good luck, Nokia. Your vision is grand, and we hope you can pull it off, nothing would make us prouder than seeing Tony Hawk again on our S60 phone. N-Gage to debut at GDC – Nokia rules out optimised device [Mobile Entertainment] → Read More
Ten years ago, I was working at a big box electronics retailer just south of Seattle. This was the era of Pentium Procs with MMX, Pilot 5000s, and PCS cellphones. Our store offered price protection to its customers, which is the practice of refunding any difference in price resulting from a price change in a purchased item. Let’s say you pick up a 15-inch CRT for $399 on the 2nd, and then the store’s price drops to $349 a week later. You could return with your receipt and get the difference back, as long as it was within 30 days of your purchase. This is common amongst the Circuit Cities and Best Buys of the world. But really, who keeps tabs on this stuff? Price Protectr, that’s who. The vowel-dropping, Web 2.0-looking website tracks the prices of products from many of the Web’s most popular vendors and tells its members when price drops that could garner them rebates are made. Make an account and put in your purchased merchandise and purchase date, and let the website do the rest. If a price drops, you’re notified by email. Nice. So far it only works for websites, not brick and mortar retailers, but since most stores that offer price protection include their online presence as well, you might be able to fold in your real life purchases. The site design is hinky, sure, but it’s a handy website if you spend a lot of money on gadgets (if you don’t, why are you here?). Website [PriceProtectr, via TechCrunch] → Read More
Unless MYDo Burururu wasn’t enough to keep you from falling asleep while in class or studying at home. The Visomate USB powered Vision and Posture Reminder helps delay that impending hunchback you’ll get from reading Crunchgear every day. When you’re slumped over and not practicing proper posture you will get flashed but not in a good way. The LED light will flash red when this happens and when you’re getting too close to the monitor when you’re watching all that porn through ultrasonic sensors otherwise it lights up blue to let you know you’re in the clear. Pick one up for $26. Sit Up Straight [Ubergizmo] → Read More
The contest is now over and we’ve drawn a winner. Over the course of a week, we climbed all the way to #85 on the Technorati list of most favorited blogs. Thanks for your effort, it is, as always, much appreciated. So who’s the winner? → Read More
Much to the chagrin of your humble reporters, we try to keep things SFW here at the Gear (that’s “safe for work”, n00bz). If you’re for that sort of thing, then you’re most likely also the type that thinks that the tube has gotten a little crass. You’ll want to purchase a PTC the day they hit the store shelves. What, you ask, is a PTC? → Read More
I am very excited to announce a new conference, called the TechCrunch20. This is a joint venture between us (TechCrunch) and Jason Calacanis, who broke the news about this earlier today. The format is simple: Twenty of the hottest new startups will announce and demo their products over a two day period. And they don’t pay a cent to do this. They will be selected to participate based on merit alone. Many tech conferences today allow startups to pitch and demo their products to their attendees, although there is almost always a hefty fee involved that ranges from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. DEMO, where I am currently, is probably the quintessential example of this model. The entire conference is paid startup demos. There are way too many to digest—60—and it is a well known secret that if you are willing to pay the $15,000+ fee, your startup will really need to suck to be turned down. While conferences like DEMO are extremely lucrative for the organizers, I’m not sure the startups or attendees attending get much out of it other than a great networking event. There are too many startups for press to give even passing coverage to many of them, and attendees are lost in a sea of pitches that all begin to blur together. And there is a serious conflict of interest at the conference level. The economics of the event dictate that a certain number of startups must be accepted for a certain fee. Attendees don’t know if they’re really seeing the best startups, or just the best startups that are willing to pay the exorbitant participation fee. A few (or a lot of) duds always make their way in. Many of the hottest startups over the past couple of years—Digg, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others—didn’t have the money in the early days to spend on DEMO and other conferences, and so they didn’t participate. We want to give the future YouTube’s a platform to announce those products. The TechCrunch20 Conference Jason and I are going to do something a lot different than the pay-to-demo model. The TechCrunch20 conference will be a two day event, held this fall (more details soon), where twenty hot startups will demo their new products—and they don’t pay a dime to do this. The startups will be invited based on the recommendation of a committee of expert analysts, entrepreneurs → Read More
Should you need a water break from the endless hours of Wii Sports you play, the HydraCoach may just come in handy. Via the LCD display it calculates your personal hydration needs, tracks fluid consumption throughout your rigorous day, paces your intake so you can meet those lofty hydration goals and motivates you so you don’t pull a muscle logging all those hours on the Wii. What about the lazy Wii guy? Does he need one? HydraCoach [Coolest Gadgets] → Read More
I feel like a fool for running around the living room. Wii Bit Lazy [Joystiq] → Read More
Push to talk, or PTT, sucks. There aren’t many things more annoying than being at the mall and hearing someone’s phone chirp followed by a disembodied voice saying, “Dude, we’re at the Mervyns!” We hate that. Cingular/AT&T, though, thinks we deserve more of it, as it’s allowing all of its customers with compatible hardware access to PTT with other customers on a pay-per-use basis. No need to sign up for it, it just works, at $.15 a minute. One neat feature is the ability to convert a PTT call to a standard cell call, including those with multiple people. Another feature that’s a bit spooky is that you can get the online status of friends in your contact list on the network, much as you can with IM. This might actually get people to use PTT on the network, but do we really want people knowing when our phones are on? → Read More
After the past two presidential elections, it’s easy to see why Florida Gov. Charlie Crist wants to ditch electronic voting machines in favor of paper-based ballots. Crist notes that the 2000 race specifically was a wake up call that something needed to be done to fix the problems associated with voting electronically. He will be asking Florida legislature for $20 million in funding to switch to a paper-based machine so that proper records are ensured. With the reliability of Diebold nowadays, perhaps regressing technologically is the best move. Florida governor wants to dump touch-screen voting [Reuters] → Read More
Uncrate has tenaciously gone through the catalog of all the gear Jack Bauer regularly uses on “24.” It’s a show I’ve tried several times unsuccessfully to get into. Oh well. Foremost (read: most expensive) among these gadgets is a fancy pants Special Ops Watch. Its rugged design makes it ideal for any counter-terrorism operations. The watch features LED lighting, a tempered and scratch resistant face and a ballistic nylon velcro band. Cooler still, it has a lithium-ion battery that recharges by way of an electro magnetic induction charger. It’s available for $450. Other items on the list include the “Jack Pack” messenger bag, Motorola i880 phone, telescope, handcuffs and bulletproof vest. It’s a cool little list and I suggest giving it a read. Jack Bauer Gear [uncrate] → Read More
Take a look at this screengrab from an AMD machine running Linux. What are we seeing? Wobbly, transparent windows, hot UI effects, an amazing 3D task switcher, and enough eye-candy to make Vista Ultimate look like Midnight Commander. I’m not saying we all go out and pick up a copy of Ubuntu, but maybe that’s actually what I’m saying. What is this machine running? An older GeForce card, a fairly fast processor, and Ubuntu Edgy Eft with Beryl 0.1.3 Window Manager. → Read More
Wii: Great for babies, the mentally deficient. It seems that Sony’s games division lost 54.2 billion yen ($445 million dollars) after the release of the PS3 this year. The company attributes the loss to problems during the launch including a general inability to make any units available to anyone. They also had some kind of problem with exploding batteries. In related news, the Times is saying that the Wii is so great and so fun that you’re a damn fool for not liking it and that it’s great for kids and it’s fun and really great and they have Zelda and there’s like a remote that’s good fun for the whole family and if you don’t like it you’re a dumb head. Of course I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the general consensus. Profit Slips at Sony on Losses for PlayStation 3 [NYTimes] Nintendo’s Wii, Radiating Fun, Is Eclipsing Sony Machine [NYTimes] → Read More
Taiwan’s OKWAP announces they are jumping into the shark infested smartphone pool. The S868 runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and incorporates a 2.4 inch touch-screen, 2 megapixel camera with autofocus, GPRS, Bluetooth, Infrared, stylus and alphanumeric keypad but it does keep its dainty figure weighing in at a mere 4.3 ounces. To set themselves apart OKWAP has added their own shortcut menu as well as a virtual scroll wheel over the keypad. For example, took look through your pictures you just circle round the ’5′ key instead of pressing a button or scrolling through with a wheel. Juiced with an Intel PXA270 416Mhz CPU, it has 128MB ROM and 64MB RAM, expandable with SD or MMC cards the S868 is ready for the big boys. The S868 will launch in Taiwan late February for $470. Who Are You? [Gearfuse] → Read More
