Yesterday InsideView, a service that mashes social data into sales intelligence, announced the launch of SmartCloud, a tool allowing instant integration with practically any social media site or business data source.
With the offering, sales representatives can quickly tap into a content source and receive business intelligence through SalesView, the company’s content mashup engine. The key to the new release is the instant, plug-and-play integration of new content sources into SalesView. The company announced integration with Twitter in May, and the latest release makes it possible to quickly delve into data from a slew of other media sites and content providers.
Social CRM and services of the like are quickly becoming a popular tool for businesses looking to manage the information overload that has come with the increasingly real-time nature of social media. Oracle and Salesforce CRM products perform similar analysis on Twitter, Facebook, and other major content sites, but do not as of yet offer a simple way to integrate new sources. → Read More
This week TechCrunch Europe interrogated your hive mind on the subject of bootstrapping your startup. Most startups bootstrap for at least part of their lifetime and how it’s done can determine whether you make it as far as exogenous funding. We also asked founders what you should spend money on even when your resources are limited. In the next two weeks we will look at getting funding and dealing with investors. Please send any tips on these subjects via email or Twitter. • If the idea is time-sensitive, reconsider bootstrapping Nathan Vingoe, KangaReview When you are funded you can do more, do it faster and get to market more rapidly. So clearly, if the idea is time-sensitive or easily copied, get funding. Funding also brings with it a network of people who have been there and done that. The greater the number people involved, the more likely it is that suitable opportunities will cross your path. → Read More
Intel’s apparently putting the kibosh on orders for its super low-voltage Z-series Atom processors. The Z-series chips can be found mostly in UMPCs and MIDs but had also made their way into various netbooks like the 12-inch Dell Mini series and the Acer Aspire One 751h, to name a few, as they provided a nice loophole to the “no screens over 1024×600 resolution” rule. → Read More
12seconds showed off a really slick-looking new iPhone app at our Real-Time Stream CrunchUp earlier this month. Unfortunately, that’s not quite ready yet. But in the meantime, they have another iPhone app that is ready, and it’s about as simple as can be — which may be good thing.
Called 12cast, the app claims to be the “simplest way to get video on Twitter.” Here’s how it works, you open the app, enter a title for the video, then rotate it to the left to bring up the video camera. You then record footage, hit send, and you’re done. (If you’re not logged into Twitter, there will be a prompt that comes up to allow you to do that.) → Read More
Italian startup incubator H-Farm Ventures is running a competition with $200,000 prize money to fund the the 10 most original and potentially successful ideas for web shows, interactive formats and what they call “trans-media narration”. Cirkus is a competition that ends on September 5th, 2009, and is open to anyone who can come up with a fresh and engaging web based program. The winners will be awarded on September 17th, where their formats will be pitched to representatives of potential buyers from broadcasters, brands and social networks. They will begin to work on their projects as part of the Shado team in Treviso, Italy, where they will get support for anything from the production process to marketing to publishing. They will also get a 10% revenue share based on the commercial use of the format. → Read More
The path of the Ninja is a deadly one, my friends. It’s also relatively clean. They don’t like clutter. Very fastidious — almost like cats. So it should come as no surprise that all your Ninja friends probably use these Ninja Star Coat Hooks. → Read More
Is Spotify planning to move into video as well as music? Today it launches a new video advertising unit. The first advertiser is Sony Pictures which is using the player to promote Sony Pictures’ latest cinema release, the Tony Scott-directed crime thriller The Taking of Pelham 123, starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta. → Read More
A vacuuming robot: you know you want one. I have a Roomba. It sits in its box under my desk ever since we hired a cleaning person to come twice a month. Seriously, though, you should get a robotic vacuum. Amazon has knocked $80 off one of the higher-end Roomba units, the 500 series, bringing it to a cool $199 with free shipping (today only). → Read More
Apparently, the New York Times is still unsure whether its reporters should be allowed to Tweet or not. Intrigued by this tweet from writer and consultant Stowe Boyd, I registered for the New York Times’ Insight Lab, an online community / focus group made up of Times readers interested in providing the media company with direct feedback.
The homepage features a quick poll asking members if they want to see Times’ reporters and editors on Twitter or not. I guess this is the most pressing issue the New York Times wants to hear from its readers about.
For some reason, close to three quarters of the respondents indicated that they’d prefer if the journalists stay far away from the micro-sharing service. Only 7 percent had no idea what Twitter is. → Read More
Does your dental plan suck? Are you afraid of the dentist? If yes, then the Dental Microscope [JP], offered by Tokyo-based crap gadget specialist Thanko, might be the right choice for you. Similar to its lightoscope released back in April, this new microscope is a combination of a microscope and a light. Needless to say, there’s a USB port, too. → Read More
The Laptop Company, operator of a web-based shopping platform through its BongoBing website, has filed a request for an extension of time to oppose Microsoft in its efforts to register a trademark for the name “Bing” with the USPTO. Furthermore, The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has effectively granted the extension request until October 28, 2009.
Here’s what BongoBing CEO and co-founder Raul Pellerano had to say about it:
“We have worked hard and invested significant resources in building our BongoBingTM brand and identity, our website and services, and our corporate identity. We believe it is important for a small company like The Laptop Company to continue to use its trademarks and conduct business without confusion in the marketplace.”
I expect many of you already were aware of this, but I can imagine at least some of you aren’t yet, so here goes: apparently you can lift the usage restrictions from Adobe PDF files by simply forwarding them as attachments to your Gmail account and opening them in HTML mode right from your inbox. That way, you can copy whatever the ‘secured’ PDF contains to a text editing program and do whatever you want with it.
For your reference: PDFs (Portable Document Format) can be encrypted so that a password is needed to view or edit its content, and they can also contain embedded DRM restrictions that provide further controls that limit copying, editing or printing. → Read More
British hacker Gary McKinnon has finally lost his latest High Court bid to avoid extradition to the United States to face charges for breaking into US military and Nasa computers in 2001 and 2002. After his arrest, and without a lawyer present, McKinnon admitted to hacking, but denies it was malicious or that he caused damage costing $800,000 (£487,000). The argument of his lawyers was not that he shouldn’t be tried, but that he should be tried in the UK and that his extreme Asperger’s Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, should be taken into account, especially since it could lead to suicide, if he was to be extradited.
He faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted in the U.S. of what prosecutors have called “the biggest military computer hack of all time”. He accessed 97 government computers belonging to organisations including the US Navy and Nasa.
Now, exactly what was this hack? McKinnon has always insisted he was looking for classified documents on UFOs which he believed the US authorities had suppressed. This is not a normal guy here. This is a mega geek who believed in UFOs. We’re not talking terrorist material. He’s been described as a 43-year-old “UFO eccentric”.
In fact McKinnon’s case reminds me very much of the story of John Forbes Nash, Jr., the subject of the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind. Nash was a mathematical genius who suffered from extreme paranoia – but his work on game theory ended up contributing to U.S. strategy during the Cold War.
Should Gary McKinnon therefore be left to rot in a U.S. jail for the rest of his life? Or should his skills be put to better use? → Read More
I have loved the iPhone, but now I am quitting the iPhone.
This is not an easy decision.
I was there in January 2007 when it was announced and I bought the first iPhone as soon as it was available. I happily bought the iPhone 3G a year later. I’ve proudly yelled “I Am A Member Of The Cult Of iPhone.” I’ve been an unabashed cheerleader for the device to all who’ll listen. And I’ve scoffed at developers who said they’d abandon the platform.
But I’m not going to upgrade to the iPhone 3GS. Instead, I’m abandoning the iPhone and AT&T. I will grudgingly pay the $175 AT&T termination fee and then I will move on to another device.
What finally put me over the edge? → Read More
Is it me or has nesting dolls jumped forward in evolution? It doesn’t seem like that long ago that the only nesting dolls you could find were either real Russian nesting dolls or a set of Tupperware. But lately, there seems to be all sorts of items masquerading as nesting dolls. → Read More
Good job, everyone! The DTV switch seemed to went well. The June 12 transition came and past on our end with little fanfare. Hopefully it was the same with you. Nielsen is reporting that the vast majority of US homes – 98.9% that is – can receive DTV signals. Kind of surprisingly though is that the under 35 demo is the least prepared with 2.7% unable to receive the digital broadcasts. → Read More
Leica is firing back over the criticism they’ve received lately about the price of their new flagship digital SLR, the S2. Internet pundits have rather, shall we say, catty about the price based on a rough glance at the specs, and Leica’s VP of marketing says that’s just not fair. → Read More
Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, firing Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom as CEO in 2007 and paying out only 1/3 of the potential earnout wasn’t the best idea. Zennstrom seems to be holding quite a grudge.
eBay is developing new peer-to-peer software to run the Skype service, they revealed in a quarterly SEC statement.
The existing peer-to-peer software is controlled by Joltid, a company controlled by Skype’s founders Zennstrom and Janus Friis. The software was not acquired by eBay in its 2005 acquisition of the Skype service and is now the subject of litigation in the UK.
eBay is developing the new software in the event they lose the right to continue to license that technology, but warns that “such software development may not be successful, may result in loss of functionality or customers even if successful, and will in any event be expensive.” → Read More
I don’t have any info on these headphones besides that they are homemade and awesome. But what info do you really need? It’s not like you’re going to actually make some of these. And I’m guessing that if you have the skill to make these coconut cans with instructions, you can probably figure it out on your own anyway. Dau Gi Bach via MAKE → Read More
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