Image-licensing network GumGum is growing by leaps and bounds. Measured as an advertising network, it is now a Quantcast Top 100 site, reaching 13.7 million people in the U.S. and 23.5 million worldwide. More than 1,000 Web publishers are licensing images through GumGum, which allows them to pay based on how many people see the image or use them for free with embedded advertising.
Today, GumGum is adding blog network B5Media and gossip site DailyFill to its customer list. They join Glam Media, MTV, and Gawker. Sites that rely on celebrity pics particularly like GumGum’s model. → Read More
Who says that two isn’t a party? This Apple iPhone and Bluetooth keyboard look like they are having a rock’n good time. The two hooked up after an enterprising chap circumvented Apple’s approval and did it anyway. The hack isn’t mainstream or available to the public just yet, but judging by the interaction shown in the video, it must be coming soon. *fingers crossed* → Read More
I’m not one to disparage the creative output of others, but this guy needs a bigger keyboard. This cover of “Imagine” by John Lennon is played on an iPhone keyboard app and needs a little more throttle – maybe some sneers? A backup band of ocarina players? John Lennon was pretty angry when he wrote this song and this guy turns it into a decision whether to order waffles or eggs over easy. → Read More
Late last week, Microsoft Research shared a couple of things about Social Desktop, a prototype of which they are debuting at TechFest 2009 in a couple of days (along with dozens of other things). From the looks of it, this will be a much talked about product even if it stays in proof-of-concept phase for now.
And if they decide to open it up even just a little, this could be a major breakthrough in tearing down the virtual wall between the desktop and the web, a trend we’ve been noticing for years.
The service would essentially be capable of providing you with a secure unique ID for all the files and folders on your desktop, enabling users to share, comment on, tag and search files like photos and videos via a dedicated web page powered by .NET. → Read More
The fate of Sony’s portable handheld is wavering at the moment with poor sales and lackluster titles, but there’s still hope for a revamped design this year that might pull it out of the dark. Here we have two fresh rumors with one having a seed of truth while the other is ‘out there’. → Read More
Unfortunately for Samsung, we’ve all known about the TL320 for the last week thanks to Amazon, but the HZ15W is brand spankin’ new. → Read More
Huawei’s Android phone broke cover last week and while we weren’t able to get all touchy-feely with it yet, we might be seeing the phone soon. Reportable, the phone set to come from T-Mobile and carry the same nameplate as the brand. Details are still developing but it seems that the touchscreen ‘UPhone’ (their words, not ours) will start shipping sometime in the late summer of 2009. → Read More
In the first of several major product changes that will sweep through AOL in the coming months, the company is adding more lifestreaming capabilities to its Bebo social network today, including activity stream updates from rival social networks Facebook and MySpace. It is also introducing a visual timeline called a “Lifestory” that puts uploaded photos, events, and (soon) videos into a scrollable, chronological series of postage stamp icons at the top of members’ profile pages. Eventually, people will be able to subscribe to other Lifestories, including those from brands and bands, and embed them in their own profile pages or elsewhere. The timeline will also become the centerpiece of a Bebo iPhone app coming out soon.
The new features should all help to reinvigorate a site that has been in the doldrums lately. But Bebo’s biggest boost will come later this week when AOL migrates all of its AIM Profiles members over to Bebo on Wednesday and Thursday. This single move will more than double Bebo’s presence in the U.S., where AIM Profiles is even bigger than Bebo. According to comScore, Bebo’s unique U.S. visitors have been in decline the past few months to 5 million in January, whereas AIM Profiles has seen an upswing to 8.5 million.
At the center of AOL’s new product strategy is its “Lifestream Platform.” Think of it as FriendFeed for the masses, with personal AIM updates mixed in. → Read More
Japanese TV isn’t short of strange TV spots, but this one for Resident Evil 5‘s XBOX 360 Deluxe Edition is creeping me out. It stars Chiaki Kuriyama, the crazy schoolgirl Go Go Yubari from Kill Bill (she is also one of the villains in Takeshi Kitano’s splatter action film Battle Royale). → Read More
Classifieds aggregation service provider Oodle is on a roll and definitely one of the startups worth following closely this year. After signing up two social networking juggernauts – both MySpace and Facebook – the company is now apparently also behind the just launched AOL Classifieds platform, per blog post by Greg Sterling.
The news comes right after a significant financing round announced earlier this month, when 3 VC firms invested $5.6 million in the company, bringing the total in funding raised to a healthy $21.6 million. Meanwhile, its traffic continues to surge (see Crunchbase profile for some upward-pointing visitor number graphs). → Read More
Given the incredible popularity of the iPhone, many entertainers (and the studios backing them) are eager to establish a presence on Apple’s App Store, but don’t necessarily want to invest in the resources needed to independently develop their own iPhone applications. Today Kyte has launched its iPhone Apps Framework – a turn-key solution that allows Kyte partners to create applications that can include video, live chat, and monetization options with a minimal amount of development costs. Alongside the launch of the new platform, Kyte is announcing five artists from IGA records who have already released their iPhone applications, including the following free apps [all iTunes links]: The All American Rejects, Keri Hilson, Lady Gaga, The Pussycat Dolls, and Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em.
Besides Twitter feeds, RSS, and chat, Kyte also offers a listing of each artist’s most recent videos taken using Kyte.tv‘s mobile phone video apps. And, perhaps most importantly for the artists, each app features a list of links to songs in the music section of Apple’s iTunes store.
Kyte isn’t the first company to launch a platform for branded iPhone applications. Other options include Infomedia’s Mobile Syndication Solutions, through which MC Hammer built his app. → Read More
It was reported last week that Telstra’s Sol Trujillo had his HTC Touch Diamond running Windows Mobile 6.5 lifted off his person during MWC. And today APC is reporting that the device was remotely wiped of both OS and user data once the theft was realized according to an anonymous higher up at Microsoft. We’ve contacted Microsoft as well and will update if we hear otherwise. I’m not really sure how I feel about this. Microsoft was able to completely wipe the device remotely? Hmm… via APC → Read More
Funny how a recession concentrates the mind. In just over a year UK startup Skimbit has made the full journey from Web 2.0 era “decision-making tool” with a vague business model about affiliate advertising, to re-engineer as an affiliate aggregator for publishers. Re-launching as Skimlinks, it now aggregates 11 affiliate networks for clients like The Daily Mail newspaper in London. The move means it has now attracted first round investment led by Sussex Place Ventures with participation from UK government body NESTA (yes, in the UK there are public funds for startups), The Accelerator Group, and Angels Duncan Jennings (eConversions) and Alex Hoye (Latitude Group). The amount was undisclosed but is understood to be in the vicinity of just over $1 million (£700,000). Competitors like the older Dianomi and Chicago-based Science Revenue appear to have more clients, but given they are North America focused, Skimlinks has an opportunity to break out more in the UK and Europe. → Read More
German custom apparel company Spreadshirt has secured €10 million in funding from Kennet Partners and returning investor Accel Partners, which led an undisclosed round of Series A funding for the company back in 2006. Spreadshirt, which competes internationally with companies like CafePress and Zazzle, was founded in 2002 by graduate student Lukasz Gadowski (currently still acting as Chairman of the company) and has become one of the most significant players in the field of personalization and online ordering of custom goods and clothing over the years. → Read More
After Meetic buying the European operations of Match.com last week, here’s another sign the online media landscape in Europe is changing in the face of a dire economy: pan-European online media company GoAdv will later today announce that it has proposed to acquire LeGuide.com, an 11-year old network of shopping portals operational in 14 European countries, for €50 million (about €64.5 million), and retain all of its staff and offices. → Read More
This news is a few days old if you were following D.I.C.E. last week, but in the off chance you hadn’t heard I thought I’d share the news that EA has announced a sequel to their popular Alice title from 2000. American McGee is back onboard with his Shanghai-based studio Spicy Horse to develop the new game. I dabbled with the first game a tiny bit back in the day and I’m thinking of revisiting it now that a new one will be coming out. → Read More
Editor’s Note: There are not a lot of fans of the $20 billion bailout of the auto industry outside of Detroit. But if the government is going to get involved, Spark Capital’s Todd Dagres believes it should insist on new leadership.
In an open letter to President Barack Obama, Dagres argues that the car industry needs no less than a Steve Jobs to save it. In fact, he suggests that Jobs himself would be the best person to fill that role if his health allows him to do so. If not, there are other capable leaders in Silicon Valley that might bring much-needed change to the auto industry.
But a product=specific approach is worth considering, even one which results in American car companies no longer building any cars, but just designing them. After all, Apple doesn’t manufacture its own computers.
The letter is below. → Read More
Thummit, a startup that evaluates Twitter messages to determine what subject they’re relevant to and if the sentiment is positive or negative, is running a special site for tonight’s Oscars ceremony. The site is currently monitoring tweets regarding dozens of actors and films, allowing users to quickly determine at a glance who is faring the best. It’s tough to tell exactly how well the sentiment recognition engine is working, as all the tweets appear to be shown in a single list without any indication as to whether they were deemed to be positive or negative. But there are definitely some clear trends – for example, Philip Seymour Hoffman has a lowly 10% approval rating, as it seems that many people really don’t like his hat.
For more of the Oscars on the web, check out Betfair, which has real time odds for the winners in each category. → Read More
Thomas Friedman is a very smart man and a very good writer. He’s certainly sold more books than I ever will. But in reading his latest column arguing $20 billion in bailout money should go to VCs not auto companies, one thing was crystal clear: This man doesn’t live in Silicon Valley. Has he even ever visited?
I totally agree we shouldn’t be bailing out “loser” companies and industries. Car companies should be going bankrupt, and their stockholders and bondholders should lose their money for betting on an industry that clearly wasn’t adapting and was spending like drunken trust fund kids. (Trust me, they’re worse than sailors.) Yes, the inevitable job losses will be hard to absorb. But these companies will fail eventually, so you’re really just stalling when it comes to the pain, and inevitably dragging out the recession longer—especially in areas like the rust belt that were hurting before the recession hit.
My above views are precisely why I live in Silicon Valley: A place that not only lacks an artificial reverence for an old stodgy company, it actually celebrates when a younger, nimble startup takes it down. How, could Friedman so get why the Valley continually creates strong multi-billion dollar companies and then turn around and propose a government subsidy for us? Investments in agencies like DARPA are one thing, but government subsidies are crutches for non-performing industries. And hit by the recession or no, Silicon Valley doesn’t want or need that crutch. → Read More
