Sign up for CC. Purchase HDTV. Get a free PS3. Any questions? Sony Offer → Read More
Microsoft has taken its marketing push for Windows Vista and Windows Live into enemy territory by offering demonstration videos on YouTube (example above). The new channel (link) was launched December 21. The content itself isn’t all that exciting, but they do demonstrate various positive aspects of Vista and Live that viewers may not be aware of. The more interesting aspect is that Microsoft would use the Google owned YouTube for such as promotion; it certainly demonstrates just how powerful the market position of YouTube has become over the last 2 years that Microsoft would use it to promote their products. Courageously, Microsoft has also left comments open on each video. Most people can guess the next part: (via istartedsomething) → Read More
Zivity is definitely one of the most controversial startups of 2007. It’s the first (as far as we know) adult site to have received Silicon Valley backing, including an announced $1 million angel round. And they certainly livened things up at the TechCrunch40 conference a few months ago. They went last, and their demo contained enough nudity to make much of the crowd shift uneasily in their chairs. But that isn’t the end of the controversy. The site, which we first covered in August, allows models to upload photos to the site and gain followers. As people vote for models, real dollars flow to the model and photographers who were involved in the shoot. And one of those models is co-founder Cyan Banister. She’s uploaded one set of photos for the beta period, without nudity. Next week, she says she’ll add another set that includes topless photos, and may go completely nude in the future. Banister says that a few years ago she would not have even considered taking her clothes off for a camera. But she isn’t new to getting attention for her looks. In 2000, when she was just 22, she won the “Sexiest Geek Alive” award. When starting Zivity, though, she knew she had to, as she puts it, “eat her own dog food.” For most founders that just means actually using their own product. But for Cyan, it also means taking off her clothes and modeling for Zivity. So how popular is she with users? The beta has just 500 users so far. Cyan has gathered 25 votes, putting her on the leaderboard of the most popular models. But she’s still well behind the no. 1 model, “Pearl,” who has 117 votes. Expect more news on Zivity in the next several weeks. They are expanding their beta users (this will be a popular one for our readers), and will soon let in more of the 20,000 people who have signed up to get a look at the site. Lots of founders say they’re willing to eat their own dog food to support their startup. But how many will shed their clothes? Zivity was also one of the 100 startups nominated for the Crunchies Startup Awards in January. CrunchBase Information Zivity Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?file=http%3A%2F%2Fcreationsnet%2Eblip%2Etv%2Ffile%2F567816%2F%3Fskin%3Drss%26sort%3Ddate&fullscreenpage=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Ffullscreen%2Ehtml&fsreturnpage=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fexitfullscreen%2Ehtml&showfsbutton=true&brandlink=http%3A%2F%2Fcreationsnet%2Eblip%2Etv%2F&brandname=cre%2Eations%2Enet&showguidebutton=false&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf Whoa. 1.1.3 icon moving in the flesh. Pretty cool stuff. It looks like this is the real deal and folks like Nate and the inventors of iBrickr got this in order to help the unlock process prior to the launch. Could this be a renegade Apple employee, tired of having to explain to his friends why their Solitaire app stops working every upgrade? Nah. What I suspect is happening is that someone got their hands on some development firmware prior to MacWorld’s SDK announcement and this basically shows us what to expect in a few weeks. They keep talking about signed code over on Gizmodo so that meets a Mac developer doesn’t want to lose his license. Oh, and it breaks all third-party apps and activations. via Nate True → Read More
Google Operating System has found code that would suggest that GTalk within Gmail may soon offer friend updates, similar to what is offered by services such as Plaxo. Some more details pulled from the code: …these updates will help you learn more about them. Gmail’s code suggests that you’ll be able to delete the updates you don’t like, reply by email or post a comment. It’s not very clear what kind of updates you will receive, but they’re probably the latest important actions of your contacts from different Google services. Google already offers similar activity updates in services including Picasa Web Albums and Orkut. The best line in the article, for those wondering what Google’s hidden social networking game plan might be: The Gmail updates will probably gather all this information, merge it with recent activities from other Google services and display it in a continuous stream, similar to Facebook’s newsfeed. Update: Erick had details on this December 19. More here. → Read More
Subvert And Profit is a service that lets users pay to get their sites on Digg (and more recently StumbleUpon). Unlike Pay Per Post, the company doesn’t waste a lot of time trying to spin their business into something socially acceptable. People pay them to pollute big social sites and get traffic, and they’re ok with being slammed for that. As long as they make money. The whole operation is complete with founder pseudonyms (Ragnar Danneskjold, Vasili Taleniekov), proxied whois records, and a clandestine PayPal Account. The service is bringing in the new year with a new pricing model. In ’08, Diggs and Stumbles will be increased to $2 per vote. Users will be paid $1 for their votes. You can also earn 20% of the earnings of any friends you refer, and 10% of the cost of advertisements from any advertisers you refer. And they are also expanding into YouTube. “Crowd Hacking” Getting articles on the front page of Digg has gotten harder as the community has grown, however. Digg’s algorithms have become more resistant to the same groups of users voting stories, so getting even 50 Diggs is no guarantee of success. Although, S&P claims 9,000 users internationally which they can spread the votes amongst. They also ask users to vote for a random group of other stories to obfuscate their operation. S&P previously claimed a 2/3 success rate. Assuming it takes 100 votes to ensure a story hits the front page and that it will pull in 10,000 visitors, you’d be paying $0.02 per visitor; a rate comparable to low end remnant advertising. Articles could be much more effective, or not hit at all. Next Stop, YouTube While they have not yet revealed how they plan on subverting and profiting from YouTube, we can take some guesses based on Dan Ackerman’s infamous guest post on the subject. Dan’s viral suggestions included email lists, comments, views, blog embeds, and ratings. I imagine S&P’s strategy will center around paying their users to boost each of these. However, getting big on YouTube is significantly harder than Digg or StumbleUpon. Front page featured videos are chosen by YouTube itself and pushing a video up the ranks in terms of views requires tens of thousands, not hundreds of user actions. I can only imagine their plans include outright view fraud to make the video “go viral”. Still, I’m left wondering how much → Read More
PMA is about a month away so the rumor mill is slowly building steam. The K100D has been cleared from Pentax’s site and I can see why the K200D would replace it, but the Super hasn’t been around a year so I don’t see it disappearing. It’s safe to say that the K100D’s replacement is coming, but the photos of the K200D look pretty fake. They look sloppy. The grip looks shaved down, which is going to suck because that’s one of the great things about the current line. The card access lamp has been taken from below the Fn button to the top of the four-way controller. It just seems stupid to do that. The lens unlock button is a full circle as opposed to a half moon. The rest of the controls look the same. The addition of RAW on the fly would be amazing. There’s a weird button next to the shutter release. Check the photos for yourself. → Read More
A reader writes: I got my girlfriend an Amazon Kindle for xmas and over the past few days it has progressively gotten worse and worse screen damage, despite barely being used (and never abused). Amazon acted like they had heard of the issue before and are trying to advance us a replacement but the backorder list is apparently huge so we don’t have very high hopes to see a replacement anytime soon. Have pic if you are interested, was mostly just curious if you had heard anything from anyone else about similar issue because Google finds nothing of the sort its to the point now where the unit is unusable, about the top 1/3rd of the screen is garbled beyond recognition, and each time we turn it on it seems like more rows of pixels go out I haven’t seen this issue, but now I can’t download fresh content, which makes Trog angry. Anyone else seeing weird eInk problems? UPDATE – Jason just sent us a pic and an update: → Read More
Dru at Gearlive saw him some 1.1.3 firmware and discovered: The ability to send an SMS message to multiple people is now there * Google Maps application can now pinpoint your location using cell tower triangulation * Google Maps can now display the Hybrid map view * You can now drag and drop application icons on your home screen * The home screen supports pagination * You can now add web bookmarks to your home screen The server is hosed, but it looks like Apple is ramping up for third-party apps. Hosed Gearlive → Read More
Glogster is a new service that lets users create web pages (they call them posters) using Flash elements. Upload photos, songs, text and other stuff, drag it around, and call it a day. You can embed the poster on another website, but its too big for most blogs or social networking sites at 960 pixels wide. You can also add friends, so technically its a social network. It reminds me a lot of Geocities back in the day (remember?), perhaps because of the colorful backgrounds and chaotic mess that results when you create a page. Lots of people created Geocities pages, added a picture, a little text, a guest book and a website counter, and that was their home page. No one visited more than once, though, since the page lacked fresh content. And that was waaaaay before the days of social networking and the explosion of blogs. Today people have a lot more to do on the web except read news, buy stuff at Amazon and send a few emails. Glogster either needs to find a way to widgetize this in a way that gets MySpacers and Facebookers excited (see Slide, RockYou, etc.), or they will likely stay a ghost town. Strike that, even with a reasonable widget strategy, I doubt Glogster has a very bright future. Frankly, it isn’t as good as Scrapblog, which targets the same niche and launched nearly a year ago. People remain enamored with Flash as an environment to create websites, though. Wix, an Israeli startup in private beta that is doing something in this area, is getting good reviews from people who’ve seen it (we still haven’t). We’ll see if they have a business model that breaks out of the Geocities ghetto. Glogster is giving away some iPods and gift certificates to new users who create posters and satisfy a set of too-complicated-for-me-to-read rules. So if you’ve got some time and lack an iPod, there you go. See Download Squad and Go2Web2 for their take on Glogster. CrunchBase Information Wix Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
If there was one defining breakthrough in 2007 as opposed to the year before, it was live video. From Justin.tv through to the gauntlet of clones live video made its presence felt, even if it’s not dominate today. Ustream.tv remains one of my favorite services. It doesn’t have the cool tech Kyte has, or perhaps the wider presence of Justin.tv, but it’s reliable, and it usually delivers. I regularly tune in to Chris Pirillo live, it’s an informative program where you learn stuff as well. Today (my time) I spent some time listening to The Drill Down, where I ended up getting exclusive news of the Digg girl and a possible record contract; it was a good example of where Podcasting meets live TV, a positive from the new wave of live content. And then there was Jim Choma. I just happened to be on Ustream after the Drill Down podcast and saw him live, and that’s where the fun began. Jim runs sites including Zipperfish.com, he also hosts a live show on Ustream under the name of “The Walrus.” Jim likes a drink, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we don’t normally stream the experience, complete with homophobia, swearing and nakedness. Once I Twittered the link his drinking session went from 30 viewers to over 100, and it went down hill from there, complete with a call in from me (the show is focused on live call ins) asking him how much he had to drink. Some short video I caught above and below. It was train wreck TV at its worst or perhaps best, but we were all compelled to watch it. If Jim had any career before it must surely join the deadpool now, or maybe not, after all drunk TV had some value tonight, at least from me and 100 others. Either way if the full Ustream clip gets released I’m betting this might well be the last great viral video of 2007. CrunchBase Information Ustream Justin.TV Kyte Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Stop with the ‘Tattoo Designs’ already Optimus announces another dope keyboard that doesn’t really exist Boston gets cellphone reception on T, thinks Yankees suck Women can’t fly ships! Wiimote Gamer Glove: Nerd Alert level delta → Read More
Kina Grannis, the girl behind the now internet famous “Digg Song” (video above) has been approached by a record company interested in discussing a record deal. Artists signing deals as a result of viral videos aren’t new, but this would be a first for one that combines viral video with Digg, and about Digg. Grannis appeared live on the Drill Team Ustream show tonight (still live at the time of writing, so no archival footage currently available). Grannis discussed the massive attention her song had gained and performed some other works live as well; great voice and undoubtedly talented. You can listen to more of Kina’s music here. Update: TechCrunch France editor Ouriel Ohayon predicted this originally. → Read More
Blizzard, pull your head out of your ass. Just because some snot-nosed foreigner makes a video for YouTube rapping about a patch for Warcraft III does not give you the right to pull this shit. Well, at least the chick was hot. Pretty sure I’m gonna barf now. Karune Debuts as YouTube Rapper — Phear’em Eminem! [Blizz Planet] → Read More
You can’t seriously be working on a sequel to one of the worst Wii games ever, right? I assumed the previous rumors were, that, just rumors. You better have better controls and a better UI among other things for Red Steel, Ubi. I think I’m about to barf, but it could just be the Absinthe I took a shot of. Ubisoft Reveals Red Steel 2 Coming in 2008 [Shack News] → Read More
Kansas based Blogfuse is a Facebook application creator for bloggers that allows content from blogs to be turned into a native Facebook application. The service is as simple to use as signing up and adding a RSS feed. Blogfuse hosts the application and it links in to Facebook functions such as share this, allowing blog posts to be easily shared within Facebook. Applications are coded in Facebook’s FBML code and not flash, delivering a visually seamless application. Blogfuse also doesn’t believe that users should be locked into their service; should a user decide later that they want to host their Facebook application themselves, switching is simply a matter of changing the app’s Callback Url, meaning you never lose a user or have to start again. Blogfuse offers full hosting for the app irrelevant of the traffic each app has. Packages start at $5/ month for one blog up to $30/ month for 10 blogs. Thanks to Blogfuse we have twenty lifetime “Pro Blogger” packages (ten blogs each) to give away to TechCrunch readers. Tell us in the comments why you want your own Facebook Application (include a real email when making the comment in the email box, it won’t be published but we’ll need it to send you the code) and we’ll select twenty of the best comments for a free account. And don’t forget, if you’re looking for invites to other services, visit InviteShare. → Read More
Do you often find your Wiimote airborne? Is the included strap too wussy for your bulging Bowling muscles? Are you tired of beaning your roommate in the melon each time you serve in Tennis? Have we got the thing for you! Sure, it’s another strap. But this one’s attached to a high-impact extreeeeeme sports glove! Never lose your Wiimote again, playa! Game on, man, game on! OK, actually, it’s rather dumb. Wiimote gamer glove [Fashionable Geek, via Shiny Shiny] → Read More
Hot on the heels of this year’s never-released Optimus Maximus superkeyboard, Optimus has taken the concept one step further with the Tactus keyboard. The idea is similar, but instead of customizable keycaps, the keys themselves are virtual. Cool idea, but as anyone who’s tried to play Mario on an iPhone can attest, there’s a definite advantage to the tactile feedback real buttons (or, indeed, keys) give a user. Optimus Tactus concept keyboard [Slippery Brick] → Read More
Sadly, 2007 wasn’t the best of years for many startups. Below you’ll find a list of the companies that took a swim in the TechCrunch DeadPool. Also see our Year in Deals, Year in TechCrunch Headlines, and Most Popular Posts. A Sad Milestone: AOL To Discontinue Netscape Browser Development Wal-Mart Shuts Movie Download Service, Offers SEM Services Instead Foonz, The Deadpool Is Calling PayPerPost Suspends Zookoda, Deadpool Looking Likely Oh My God! Apple Killed Think Secret! Those Bastards! VCs Push 3Guppies Into The Deadpool CNET To Shutter Newsburst RSS Reader AGLOCO Doesn’t Pay To Surf, Joins Deadpool CompUSA Goes Into The DeadPool. Good. Edgeio To Shut Down – In The DeadPool Yahoo Drops MingleNow into Deadpool Good News/Bad News For Startup Founder Cliff Shaw Divshare To DeadPool Brightspot.tv = DeadPool Yak4Ever Takes Second (and Final) Dip into Deadpool E*Trade Heading To The Deadpool? Deadpool: Teqlo Finds Out That Mashups Don’t Make Money Patent Monkey Joins Deadpool, Only To Rise Again as Patents.com Yappd Didn’t Last Long. DeadPool. Judy’s Book To Shut Down. Yelp Is The Last of The Local Review Sites Still Standing. Yang Decides to Shut Down Yahoo 360—Nobody Notices Snocap Drops 60% Of Staff And On The Market: Looking Good For The Deadpool NetBank Joins The Deadpool TellThem: MySpace Kills Another Startup Who Wants to Buy a Virtual World? 37Signals Drives Another Company To The DeadPool Time To DeadPool TailRank? You Decide. Yahoo Bill Pay To Shut Backfence Joins The Deadpool NBBC Joins The Deadpool Skinnyr Joins The TechCrunch Deadpool German Twitter Clone Dukudu For Sale On eBay Reality Bedding: “Too Visionary” and “Ahead of Its Time” Click.TV Player Joins the Deadpool Amp’d Mobile Implodes: Burns $360 million, Declares Bankruptcy RSSCalendar Reaches The End Of The Road Webjay Joins DeadPool, Yahoo Scores Hat Trick For May AllFreeCalls Back From DeadPool, Free Calls Are Here Again Yahoo Shutting Down Auctions – Second Service To DeadPool This Month Breaking: Yahoo To Shut Down Yahoo Photos In Favor Of Flickr Goodbye Froogle SynapseLife Taking eBay Exit Goodbye, Tello. Welcome to the DeadPool. Yahoo Mixd Says “Peace Out” and Goes to DeadPool Fonpods in DeadPool AllFreeCalls Shut Down FilmLoop Betrayed By Investors? Performancing Descends Into Chaos – Shareholders Squabble Publicly Performancing Heading to DeadPool BitPass. DeadPool. Findory Put On Life Support Judy’s Book: Avoiding the DeadPool Big Layoffs At Insider Pages Browster in DeadPool FilmLoop Dips Toes Into The DeadPool → Read More
http://www.gamevideos.com:80/swf/gamevideos11.swf?embedded=1&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&src=http://www.gamevideos.com:80/video/videoListXML%3Fid%3D16818%26ordinal%3D1198883667583%26adPlay%3Dfalse *Drool* It’s 20 minutes of Hadouken fury so strap in. → Read More
