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
A case between the Associated Press and All Headline News is moving forward based on a 90-year-old legal doctrine which may no longer be applicable in the Internet age. A federal judge ruled that the AP can sue AHN for stealing its “hot news.”
The AP’s beef against AHN appears to have more merit than when it tried to go after bloggers for merely linking to its stories without changing the headlines. AHN itself sells news feeds and headlines to other Websites, newspapers, and digital signage companies. The AP alleges that AHN simply copies the AP’s headlines and news without permission and without paying a syndication fee, and then resells those headlines and news stories as part of its own feeds with all AP accreditation stripped out.
If that is what happened, it does sound like pure theft. But rather than simply sue AHN for copyright infringement, the AP is also invoking the “hot news” doctrine, which treat news scoops as a form of property. Hot news is defined as time-sensitive news that is gathered at a cost, which a competitor then reproduces, free-riding on the original news-gathering organization’s efforts.
Basically, the judge says the AP can try to prove AHN stole it’s “hot news”. But what constitutes “hot news” in an age of instant communications? And how long does it last. In 1918, “hot news” traveled by mail and telegraph. It could last hours or even days. Today, a true scoop lasts for about a minute. The AP would have to show instances of articles where not only the AP broke the news, but was the only outlet to get the original story—something rarer and rarer when anyone can publish news over the Internet. → Read More
http://boostmobile.mobilerider.com/embed/small_wide/454/14205/ Boost Mobile recently unveiled their $50 unlimited plan that includes nationwide talk, text, web and walkie-talkie. With that new plan comes a marketing blitz and what Boost calls the Unwronged campaign. The first ad in this campaign was kind of revolting, but I’m not keen on hirsute women. Check out the exclusive “Coroner” spot that’s set to air starting tomorrow after the jump. I guess these are better than the George Washington spots. → Read More
People generally love sharing things, and Twitter has made broadcasting updates to anyone who cares to care on what you’re doing, wearing, reading, commenting on, eating, using, etc. a breeze; in 140 characters or less, even. It’s only natural to see so many users also share which music they are listening to at any given moment on Twitter, as this has been a fairly popular use of status feeds on other social networking and communication services for years (Facebook, Skype and Windows Live Messenger leap to mind).
After the jump, a number of ways to use Twitter for just about anything related to music. → Read More
Palm’s upcoming Pre has me all hot and bothered, so this emulator from TealOS sure looks enticing. It’s basically a skin that overlays on PalmOS devices like the Centro and gives it the feel of webOS. It seems to do a good job of replicating the things we’ve all seen of webOS, but it’s still PalmOS.
Anyone up for trying it out? It costs about $15. I would but I don’t have any Palm devices around the office. → Read More
I never got a chance to play the first Mass Effect, but I’m told it’s very popular. Hit the jump for ME2′s teaser trailer. → Read More
Spoilers ahead! Well, maybe not, but I’ve vowed not to watch any and all trailers or videos from the upcoming sequel.
You may also be interested to know that Bay was given exclusive access to GM’s design studio to handpick new cars for the film. GM Vice President of Global Design Ed Wellburn gives an interesting tidbit about how Trax and Beat will somehow “work together in some way”, whatever that means. Maybe one of you can decipher what he means. → Read More
A bill that was introduced last week by two Texas Republicans would require all ISPs and anyone providing Internet access otherwise (that’s you and me, reader, if you have a Wi-Fi router) to keep logs of activity for up to two years. This bill aims to seek out those sick individuals who are trafficking child porn. The Internet SAFETY (Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act) Act, introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith and Sen. John Cornyn, threw out some numbers that are quite startling. → Read More
The good folks at Popular Mechanics worked with the Center of UFO Studies and constructed a map showing the hottest of the UFO hotspots spots. This list and map might not be Agent Mulder approved but it’s enough to confirm suspicions that LA is certainly home to some unusual creatures and probably house their crafts. → Read More
If Facebook has one standout application it has to be Photos. Measured on its own, it is the largest photo site on the Web. A full 69 percent of Facebook’s monthly visitors worldwide either look at or upload photos, based on comScore data. And more than 10 billion photos have been uploaded to the site.
And it’s been pulling away from its competitors. As can be seen in the comScore chart above, as recently as last September the top three photo sites in the U.S. were running neck-and-neck, with Facebook Photos at 23.9 million unique visitors, followed by Photobucket at 21.3 million uniques, and Flickr at 19.5 million uniques. But by January, the number of monthly U.S. visitors going to Facebook Photos shot up 41 percent to 33.6 million. Meanwhile, Photobucket is up only 7 percent to 22.8 million, while Flickr is up 12 percent to 21.9 million. (Picasa is a distant fourth in the U.S. with 8.1 million).
In other words, Facebook increased the gap between its closest competitor (Photobucket in the U.S.) from 2.6 million monthly unique visitors to 10.8 million. On a worldwide basis, the gap between Facebook Photos and Flickr (which is the No. 2 site globally, and looks like it is about to pass Photobucket in the U.S.) went from 41.2 million unique monthly visitors in September to 87 million in December (the most recent data available, see chart below).
What accounts for Facebook’s advantage in the photo department? → Read More
Casio Japan announced the PRX-2000T [JP], the newest addition to it series of Protrek watches, which are geared towards sports and trekking enthusiasts. The new model is just 11.3mm thick and features a titanium with carbide coating band and bezel (weight: 105g). → Read More
