AstleyClarke.com, a high-end fashion jewelry site based in London, has announced a $5.5 million (£2.75m) in funding from Index Ventures in London. Despite gloomy, credit-crunch market conditions, big spenders continue to do so, and they are doing more of it online in the luxury bracket. The move reflects Index’s recent interest in the eCommerce industry with Betfair, Lovefilm and Glasses Direct. Index partner, Danny Rimer, will join Bec Clarke from AstleyClarke and Mark Esiri from Venrex on the board of directors. Online luxury players are in a good position, as they can be more nimble and bold than established brands, which are normally afraid of making their cherished brands look cheap by selling them online. In fact, they have badly mis-read their own audience. Forrester’s Consumer Technographics data says that eight out of ten “high net worth consumers” are hammering the Net with their platinum credit cards faster than I can type this sentence. Bec Astley Clarke, a former executive at Tesco.com, founded the website in 2006 and will use the new investment to boost marketing and build the company’s infrastructure, including hiring an operations director and an IT director. CrunchBase Information Astley Clarke Index Ventures Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Amazon’s customer reviews are an indispensable feature on the online mega-store, allowing shoppers to get a quick read on products without having to turn to magazine reviews or external sites like epinions. But many products, particularly electronics, have hundreds of reviews. Who has time to read through them all? Pluribo, a new startup out of New York, has just released a Firefox extension that looks to filter through the noise of Amazon customer reviews. The plugin automatically culls through every review on a given product and generates a concise two sentence summary that highlights the most common positive and negative comments. For the time being automatic product reviews are restricted to electronics, but the site plans to implement support for other products, like books and kitchen appliances, in the near future. Beyond providing a condensed summary, Pluribo also tries to justify its conclusions. To see the plugin’s explanation, users need only mouse-over one of the underlined terms, which will generate a list of excerpts from the relevant reviews. For example, hovering over “This product scratches easily” will show a list of quotes that contain phrases related to scratches, scuffs, and other similar terms. So does it work? Sort of, but I wouldn’t go by Pluribo’s word alone. The system seemed to work well enough for ruling out obviously bad choices, but when it comes down to making a final selection, it’s best to turn to the reviews themselves. Pluribo doesn’t always seem to catch the most obvious problems, and the quotes it uses to justify its conclusions don’t always make sense. There’s also no way to tell which products Pluribo has indexed without opening each individual product page. It’s also unlikely that many people will be willing to install a Firefox extension to get reviews from Amazon alone(the company says more stores are on the roadmap). Even with its problems, Pluribo is a handy tool and one that could gain some traction once it expands its supported product base. CrunchBase Information Pluribo Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
The just-announced iPhone 3G pricing plan for Rogers in Canada isn’t going down too well. One intrepid Canadian started a Web site, RuinediPhone.com, that has a petition targeting the rather unfair prices. So far, more than 17,000 people have signed the petition, which is intended to make Rogers drop the price of the iPhone data plan. The site’s creator has even written an open letter to Steve Jobs, asking him to do “something” about the unfair prices. We applaud your struggle, Canada. There’s no reason for Rogers to charge what it wants to charge compared to what AT&T charges. Unless here’s some Canadian tax thing we’re not familiar with. via iLounge → Read More
Second-tier social network Hi5 has acquired app developer PixVerse for an undisclosed amount, just four months after launching its app platform based on the OpenSocial specification. PixVerse offers several applications such as Pix Chat and Pix Wall, which are Flash-based and run on not only Hi5 but other social networks like Facebook as well. The company was founded in February 2007 and is financially backed by Venrock. It was also one of the earlier adopters of Google App Engine. CrunchBase Information PixVerse hi5 Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
We’re just minutes away from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s joint announcement with Tesla Motors, but we already hear that he will discuss how Tesla plans to build its electric sedan factory in the Bay Area, not New Mexico as previously expected. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though Tesla will actually unveil the sedan itself. While New Mexico offered a $7 million incentive package to locate the factory there, California upped the ante by offering sales tax exemption for the purchase of manufacturing equipment, and by providing grants for the training of new employees. We’ll have a recording of the webcast here once the event finishes. In the meantime, head over to the Office of the Governator to see it live. Most people know Tesla for its fancy electric sports car (seen above), which can be glimpsed driving down highway 101 near its discreet headquarters in San Carlos. But with $146 million in the bank, Tesla plans to expand into a more mainstream market with a $60,000 sedan, slated for production in two years. CrunchBase Information Tesla Motors Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Digg has released some materials around their new Recommendation Engine, which we wrote about last night, and say that it will be released this week. Two overview videos are below, including an interview with Digg Lead Scientist Anton Kast. We’ve also included the text of a white paper on the Recommendation Engine. Digg Recommendation Engine from Kevin Rose on Vimeo. Anton Talks About The Digg Recommendation Engine from Kevin Rose on Vimeo. The Digg Recommendation Engine People love Digg because it’s a place to discover and share great content from around the Web. The Digg homepage always has the most popular stories, but many Digg users find their content in the Upcoming section, which gets over 15,000 new stories a day. To help users filter this enormous amount of content, we have created a new feature: The Digg Recommendation Engine. When you Digg a story, you tell the Recommendation Engine two things: that you recommend the story to other users and, less obviously, that the users who Dugg the story before you are good at finding content. The Recommendation Engine keeps track of users who Dugg particular stories before you did, and it recommends you the stories they Dugg. The more content you Digg, the smarter the Recommendation Engine becomes. Finding Diggers Like You The Digg Recommendation Engine uses your Digg history over the last thirty days to make Recommendations. (You can see the number of items you have Dugg over the last month on the right-hand side of the Recommended view.) Every time you Digg a story, the Engine matches you with other Diggers who Dugg the same story, and keeps track of all your Diggs in common with them. When it’s time to calculate your Recommendations, the Engine draws from this pool of matched Diggers. For each matched Digger, it computes a correlation coefficient between you and them. It then picks a cutoff for this correlation coefficient, and the Diggers who make the cut are called “Diggers Like You.” It’s easy to understand how the correlations are calculated. For each user with whom you Dugg something in common, the Engine determines how many stories the two of you Dugg in common, and divides that number by the total number of stories you or they Dugg. The ratio is a correlation coefficient, a number between zero and one (zero if you and the other user never agreed; one if → Read More
High res available here. This purported ad sent in by a Radio Shack employee to Joystiq backs up the last week’s ad from K-Mart that Microsoft will give the Xbox 360 a price cut during E3. Hold off a few weeks if you’re in the market, kiddies. → Read More
Can you hear me now? No, I’m listening to music thanks to Rhapsody. That horrendous opening can mean only one thing: Verizon Wireless has joined up with Rhapsody to launch a mobile music subscription service, the first of its kind. The name, V CAST Music with Rhapsody, could use some work, but that’s to be expected. (That’s actually a good idea for an article: on terrible product names.) Anyway, the service, which will run you $15 a month, gives you access to a library of five million all-you-can eat songs. (Or, you can keep paying $1.99 per individual download if you’re so inclined, one for your phone and one for the PC, all DRM-free.) Subscribers will get to use the service on both their cellphone and PC. Now, you’ll need a Rhapsody-compatible phone to use the service. These include the unreleased LG Chocolate 3, which will be the service’s launch vehicle, and current “it” phone for VZW, the LG Dare. You can try it out today by visiting VZW’s Web site. → Read More
Amazon, watch out. Earlier today, Google launched an affiliate ad network. Or, rather, it rebranded Performics, the affiliate ad network that came along with its purchase of DoubleClick, as the “Google Affiliate Network.” As with other affiliate networks such as Amazon’s, participating Website publishers get paid a fee for each referral that results in a sale. Existing advertisers include Bank of America, Barnes & Noble, Citi, Target, and Verizon. The service isn’t yet integrated into Google AdSense (publishers and advertisers still have to set up separate accounts), but that would be a logical next step. An integration with AdSense could add a contextual element to the affiliate ads placed through the network. The more relevant Google can make those affiliate links, the more that consumers will actually click through and buy (in theory). Google also continues to experiment with a pay-per-action advertising program, which is still in beta. At some point, it might make sense to consolidate that effort into the Google Affiliate Network as well. Update: Google will actually be phasing out the PPA program at the end of August as part of the integration with DoubleClick. You can read more details at the blog post here. CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
CBS announced the closing of its acquisition of CNET today. The deal, first announced last month, will bring CNET under the control of Quincy Smith’s CBS Interactive division, “the premier online content network for information and entertainment.” An email to all CNET employees from Smith and CNET CEO Neil Ashe (now CBS Interactive President) is below. It’s interesting that there’s no mention of Dan Farber, CNET News.com’s editor-in-chief, in the leadership section. Just an oversight, or is CBS just making it clear that they don’t think much of CNET’s newsroom? Read the full email below. Update: We’ve added a second email from CBS CEO Leslie Moonves to all CBS employees. He at least mentions that CNET is in the news business, listing “news” before business but after technology, entertainment and sports. → Read More
Is this purported TF2 poster real or fake? What is that thing? via Film School Rejects → Read More
We eagerly await to hear what “perfection” sounds like. That is to say, we eagerly await to try out the Creative Zen X-Fi, a series of portable media players with built-in Wi-Fi. Aside from the usual set of features from every PMP ever, the Wi-Fi is used to instant message your dumb friends, presumably about what music you’re listening to or what video you’re watching right now. So far, it’s only compatible with Yahoo! and MSN Chat; they should probably add AIM for the American version. That, and you’ll be able to wirelessly stream media to and from the device. No release date or price or anything particularly useful right now. That would be expecting far too much. → Read More
One of the most compelling features of the Dash – Wi-Fi updates – is finally here. Dash users simply connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi and the Dash GPS unit will download and install the update automatically. Try doing that with your TomTom. After the update the devices will include a new feature called MyRoute, a system that maintains a list of your popular routes and adds your personal preferences to its routing suggestions. Here’s a rundown of the latest goodies: MyRoute™ – With the new MyRoute feature, as you travel from one point to another, Dash Express will automatically learn your preferred route in the background. The next time that you drive between the same origin and destination, the first route choice will be MyRoute, complete with traffic-based arrival time data. MyRoute can be compared to the computed Dash routes, including traffic detours, to decide which is optimal. Search Along Route™ – Finding whatever you need on the road using Yahoo! Local search just got even easier. With the new Search Along Route feature, you can now search for anything you need along your selected route, shortening diversions on the way to your destination. Want to grab a latte on the way to a meeting? Simply do a Yahoo! Local search for “Starbucks” and select “along route” to be presented with the stores that are most conveniently located. Results are displayed with the distance from your current location, the distance off the route and the direction of the destination relative to the selected route. Read more… CrunchBase Information Dash Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Rock Band 2 will come out this year for the Xbox 360 in September, with other platforms—the PS3 and Wii—getting in on the fun later in the year. What that means, exactly? Your guess is as good as mine. But let’s focus: Rock Band 2 is coming. You’ll be able to use all of your Rock Band 1 accessories in the sequel, but new versions will be released alongside the game. You’ll also be able to use all your downloaded songs (DLC) in the sequel, which is awfully magnanimous of publisher MTV Games. Another secret: I never played Rock Band. Wanna see a picture of the new guitar and a few screen shots? Of course you do. → Read More
The picture on the right shows a conference room shot with the 360° camera (left). As to be expected, Olympus says the camera will be most likely used for surveillance purposes. The company’s own R&D lab, Future Creation Laboratory, is mainly responsible for the development of the technology. Olympus didn’t say when the camera will be commercialized. → Read More
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