K-I-S-S: Keep It Simple, Stupid. It’s a mantra that always pops into my head when I’m looking at new startups. A lot of them seem to want to do a million different things because other companies have been successful at one of those things in the past. But that’s a bad idea. Way too many new products and services are too complicated. And I would suggest, often fail as a direct result of that.
On the face of it, it makes sense to give users a lot of options when it comes to features, and let them decide what to use and what not to use. But decisions can be a burden. And further, users are often bad decision makers. It may be blasphemy to say that users want to be told what to do, but at the very least, they want to be lead in a direction. → Read More
As a service whose sole purpose is to track the applications that people actually use on their systems, it should be no surprise that Wakoopa has a lot of interesting usage data. On a day to day level, Wakoopa’s data is good, but it’s the aggregate data over long periods of time that can be really meaningful to show how we are using our computers. Today, Wakoopa has released the first such aggregate data with its inaugural State of the Apps report.
The report shows the quarterly data for desktop software, games and web apps. The data comes from the over 75,000 Wakoopa users that have installed the desktop tracking software to enable the company to see actual usage. These users have logged over 525 million hours of app usage, across over 200,000 apps. → Read More
It’s been about six weeks since SXSW, where the Dodgeball-reborn location-based social network FourSquare was formally launched. A lot of people thought it was one of those things that was cool at a conference, but would die quickly after. But all these weeks later, I’m actually using it more than ever, according to my statistics. And soon, more of you may be able to play along as well.
Version 1.2 of the iPhone app is currently in the works and it will bring an expanded roster of cities to the playing field, including some international ones, co-founder Dennis Crowley tells me. While he wouldn’t give a release date, judging from FourSquare’s own Twitter account, it’s coming along nicely. Some other things to expect shortly include the ability to add a place not currently in the system right from the app (so, finally, you won’t get zero points if you check in an unknown place). And soon, the so-called “super users” will be able to create their own badges that their friends can play for. → Read More
India recently signed an agreement to purchase 250,000 XO laptops from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. Given India’s lukewarm reception to the concept in the past, it’s surprising to see that they are starting to buy into the concept.
Perhaps the success of the pilot program in 2007 has convinced them that this is a good idea. And while an Indian company has attempted to create a $10 alternative, their efforts have had little to no results. → Read More
Marin Software, a startup that creates search engine management software for advertisers and agencies, has secured $13 million in Series C financing led by DAG Ventures, with Focus Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Amicus Capital participating. Marin received $7.25 million in Series B funding in 2008 led by Benchmark Capital. The company also received $2.5 million in Series A funding from Amicus Capital in 2006.
Marin Software offers a browser application to help advertisers and agencies managing paid search advertising campaigns across Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search sites. Marin’s software is used by Razorfish, ZipRealty and other companies. Marin’s customers spend at least $100,000 per month on paid search campaigns across the major search engines.The company’s main competitors include Kenshoo and Refined Labs. → Read More
At its core, Twitter is supposed to be a micro-presence service that invites users to answer the question, “What are you doing?”. That’s all well and good, but most people tend to ignore this question entirely, Tweeting about anecdotes, their favorite songs, and any number of other things totally unrelated to what they’re actually doing. It’s become a service for entertainment, news, and conversations, where those presence statuses (messages like “I’m at work”) have become frowned upon for being dreadfully boring.
They may be boring, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. Quub, a new service launching tonight, is looking to fill the gap between Twitter’s status updates and the location-based services offered by the likes of Loopt and Google Latitude. The service’s primary purpose is to help users tell their friends what they’re actually doing, and while it shares some similarities with Twitter (including a 140 character limit), there are some key distinctions that help Quub stand on its own.
The first main difference is that all relationships on Quub are two-way. That is, you’ll have to send a friend request (and have it accepted) before you can view someone’s updates. → Read More
The headline makes it sound a little more sinister than it is, but that’s really the gist of it. QB1, a robot created by Swiss group OZWE, is essentially a next-generation music playing machine. While things like Pandora and Genius playlists are changing the way people interact with their music within the confines of the traditional OS, OZWE wanted to change the way we interacted with our entertainment devices in the first place. It’s aware of its surroundings in 3D, recognizes faces and pictures, and can interpret gestures. I was skeptical at first, but on reflection, the QB1 seems like a really interesting and powerful idea.
The QB1′s screen turns to face you, but that’s the limit of its movement. It also shows a sort of shadow version of you and your surroundings, which helps you make gestures on-screen. But although its stated capabilities are interesting, it’s the implied capabilities which seem more important. Think of the convenience of multi-touch gestures applied to all your media, and not limited to a small patch on your laptop. Raise your hand and make your fingers into a shelf, then lower it — the volume decreases. Spin your finger around clockwise to fast forward, counter-clockwise to rewind. Speak the name of a song, or the track number, or hold up an album cover to play it. This from anywhere in the same room as the QB1 — or whatever successor makes good on these ideas. → Read More
Microsoft is launching a new product into private beta on Tuesday morning with the aim of keeping friends and family in touch during emergencies. The idea for product, called Microsoft Vine, came to Microsoft GM Public Safety Initiatives Tammy Savage four and half years ago during Hurricane Katrina. Development started a year and a half ago.
Vine is designed to keep family and friends in touch when other communication methods are either broken or not particularly efficient. Times of crisis usually involve a breakdown in mobile phone or other key communication infrastructures, and Vine is designed to be as hardy as possible to keep people connected. Vine can be accessed via a desktop client (Windows only for now), text message or email.
So what is it? Vine is a tool keep people connected during a crisis, but it’s also used to for more mundane, everyday tasks. My guess is it will hit a sweet spot with the masses. My parents, for example, are going to love this. → Read More
This is the kind of weapon that is owned by a killing machine. It’s not an enthusiast weapon, and it’s not a hobby weapon. It’s a murder weapon. I see it being owned by someone like the main character in A History of Violence. He doesn’t want to use it, but god help us all if you make him. → Read More
Technorati has fully redesigned Blogcritics, a seven-year old blog network that the media company acquired last August, in an effort to drive more traffic to the site. We originally wrote about Blogcritics in 2005. Blogcritics currently is a community of 3,300 writers who have published more than 84,000 articles, providing bloggers an entry point to publish their content to a more widely-visited site. The content on the site hasn’t changed much; it’s will simply be packaged in a sleeker, more user-friendly interface. Currently, the site’s design and interface is bland and features very little in terms of images.
The new design, which will be rolled out at 1 AM PST tonight, features a new logo, a more colorful interface, and is well-organized. The site contains a new feature “ObamaNation,” that will analyze the impact President Obama is having on pop culture. It also allows users to follow their favorite writers by listing all of the content a writer has created both on and off the Blogcritics platform. All in all, it is a big improvement in terms of the way the site looks and feels. Blogcritics, which is similar to Salon’s Open Salon, draws about 1 million unique monthly visitors, according to Google Analytics. The site hasn’t increased traffic since its acquisition last summer—the site had about 1 million monthly uniques at that point as well, so this is clearly an effort to spruce up the blog community to drive more traffic. The site currently runs ads completely through Technorati’s ad network. → Read More
Although the Kindle 2′s screen is much improved over the first one’s, it still lacks the contrast and brightness of a normal piece of paper. Obviously real paper is the gold standard for e-paper, and lots of research is being done to make the devices more like the real thing. Research published recently in Nature Photonics describes an e-ink display method that promises to be faster and more versatile than current tech. → Read More
Japanese companies NTT, Toho Gas and Sumitomo Precision Products have achieved a major leap forward in the production of efficient fuel cells. Their new and jointly developed fuel cell system [JP] boasts record-high efficiency (in the field of commercial applications, at least). → Read More
This is an odd USB gadget that doesn’t come from Thanko for a change. A company called Japan Trust Technology is selling a mini Japanese style garden [JP] (OK, it’s just a couple of plastic bamboos) that includes a watering system and is powered by USB. → Read More
Pretty nice deal on the 2GB iPod Nano-like Archos 105 at $26 with free shipping. It generally sells for around $60 or so at various sites, but Amazon’s got it as a one-day Gold Box deal today. → Read More
I’m here at Facebook’s office in downtown Palo Alto, where the company is holding a special Technology Tasting to announce and demonstrate its latest APIs and other features it is going to begin offering developers. In the last two days we’ve heard about some of the announcements, including its decision to grant developers access to full streams – a big step for a service that has previously been quite reserved about exporting its data. And earlier today we learned about its decision to fullly embrace of OpenID, which is a huge leap forward for the initiative.
I’ll be streaming the event live using Qik, during which we will be shown demos of some of the first implementations of the full Facebook streams and its integration with OpenID.
The live video is below: → Read More
Our own MG Siegler is attempting to shoot live video of the ongoing MySpace all hands meeting where the new executive team, including new CEO Owen Van Natta, is addressing the troops.
The result? Total failure. We had to try since the meeting is being held outside. MySpace’s Los Angeles headquarters has no place for a thousand or so people to congregate, so they are holding the meeting outside in the courtyard, facing a public street. So far, so good. But security put up a fence around the courtyard and checked everyone’s badges carefully. MG tried, and tried again, but was turned away.
Ever diligent, MG then tried to video the event from outside the fence. But the audio is so bad that nothing could be heard. On the upside he was kicked out by security and told he’d be arrested if he didn’t leave the property. He’s now trying to find a back way into the courtyard, and I’ve promised to bail him out if it comes to it.
The full video, which contains absolutely no useful content whatsoever, is below. Next time we’re renting a helicopter. → Read More
This is the final boarding call for Good Old Games Flight 1437 with service to Fallout. (Boo.) → Read More
The ad rates for online video keep coming down, and that is a good thing. Video ad network BrightRoll is about to release some data from the first quarter of 2009 which shows ad rates as measured in cost-per-thousand impressions (CPMs) dropping 12 percent annually. The rate of decline is slowing from the 25 percent drop that video ad CPMs experienced during the fourth quarter of 2008. But if they fall farther that could be a good thing.
In a survey of 150 advertising executives in the U.S., more than half (53 percent) expect video CPM rates to be “marginally lower” a year from now, while another 20 percent think CPMS will drop in half. Video CPMs range broadly depending on whether the ads are being sold directly by sites with large video inventories or by ad networks, but a $20 CPM is a broad industry average. These still need to come down to between $7 and $9 to roughly match what advertisers are paying for commercials on TV on average (more like $15 for primetime, and as high as $50 for niche, targeted cable channels). These declining CPMs probably have something to do with the downward revision in ad video revenue estimates that we are starting to see.
(More data after the jump). → Read More
Classic mech fighting game Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram is coming to the 360, but the proprietary control scheme (dual full-sized joysticks) isn’t exactly implemented well in the 360 controller. So what’s a Sega fan to do? Oh, how about hack a couple containers of Japanese candy onto the controller? → Read More
