So it’s been nearly 10 days since Foursquare launched its social mobile game ‘ground assault’ into 50 more cities, including a bunch of European ones. But what I’d like to know is who’s actually using it here in Europe?
Because, you see, Europeans are already quite well served by location based mobile applications like Qype, the various localised versions of Yelp, and other startups like Rummble. And there are increasingly new kids on the block like Flook.
What is clear however, is that only Foursquare and Gowalla (at least to my knowledge) have come up with this gaming approach to ‘checking in’ which has attracted so much interest from high profile blogs like TechCrunch and bloggers like Robert Scoble.
The question is, which will scale and ultimate prove the winner? Because – at least in this instance – we have two different approaches to the issue of social, mobile and location. → Read More
Interrupting your Thanksgiving Day weekend (and my Team Fortress 2 Sniper marathon) with a quick deal that will appeal to many of you (I should hope). You know Steam, right, Valve’s digital distribution deal? There’s a crazy, multi-day Black Friday sale going on right now that includes Left 4 Dead 2 at $37.99 (25 percent off the regular price) and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for $2.49 (75 percent off the regular price). A vanilla bullshit at Starbucks costs more than that. → Read More
While consumers around the U.S. are sniffing out Black Friday deals today, sample sale sites have emerged to provide members with serious discounts year round. Online sample sales sites such as Gilt Groupe, HauteLook, Ideeli, RueLaLa and others, have been picking up serious traction in the past year.
We’ve seen a plethora of sites pop up for women’s and men’s clothing and accessories, travel deals and even children’s clothes. Totsy, an invitation only sales site that features children’s brands, baby gear and products, recently launched to appeal to parents looking for a bargain. → Read More
If you’re anything like me – and let’s for all of our sakes pray that you’re not – then your first thought as you stagger back to your desk today, bloated and giddy after Thanksgiving, will likely be “what can I do to kill time until the end of the week?”
Actual work is out of the question, obviously. If you’re a PC person then there’s always Minesweeper, while Mac users can make a start on editing their Thanksgiving videos in iMovie. Linux fan? I suppose once you’ve finished your daily six hours of masturbation, you can just fill up the rest of the time pompously explaining to the rest of us precisely why what we’re doing is wrong. You know, the usual.
But, regardless of our OS allegiance, there’s one activity we can all enjoy together – and that’s taking a look back at the last seven days of TechCrunch. So let’s get started, shall we?
(And Linux users, please wash your hands before clicking. We all know where they’ve been…) → Read More
Yoichi Wada is the president and CEO of Square Enix. Square Enix is a very big video game developer and publisher, responsible for games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts. Hence, his words mean an awful lot. His latest words: console gaming, as we know it today, has only a few years left in it. The future? It’s all about the network, baby!~ → Read More
Undoubtedly by now you’ve heard about Tiger Woods’ car crash. Early reports had him in serious condition (which remember, is better than critical condition) after he apparently hit a fire hydrant and a tree while leaving his home in his SUV. The latest reports say he has been released from the hospital and is “fine.” But I’m not going to speak to any of that because that’s not what we do (you can find out more here).
Instead, as I’m watching this unfold infront of my eyes on the Internet, I’m reminded that this type of story is exactly why the web is destroying newspapers, and should eventually even take down television and the main source of news for most people. I first heard the news via a BNOnews bulletin sent via push notification to my iPhone. I immediately pulled up Twitter and already some 10-15 people had retweeted it and the news was appearing in my stream. → Read More
I’m still a big bag of mixed reactions when it comes to Samsung’s new mobile OS, Bada. On one hand, Samsung has always proven themselves to be pretty bad at the software side of things (Need proof? See the hot mess that is the Samsung Behold II). On the other, that’s nothing that a bit of man-power and money can’t fix, both of which Samsung has plenty of. We’ll just have to wait and see how things look when Bada launches, which according to this invite we just got will be on December 8th at a press conference in London. We’ve confirmed two speakers so far: Dr. HS Lee, Samsung’s EVP and Head of Media Solution Center, and Kevin Thau, Head of Mobile at Twitter. That latter appearance makes us think Bada will have a bit of a social twist to it – but these days, what doesn’t? → Read More
Last Tuesday, Xbox announced that it would integrate Twitter, Facebook, Zune video compatibility, and Last.fm into its Live services. The software update was free, and has thus far been a success. We recently reported that over 2 million Xbox live subscribers used the Facebook feature from their consoles in the first week. Equally as impressive, is the fact that last.fm has netted nearly 1 million new subscribers from the partnership. Since the introduction of the service, last.fm has seen a record number of new subscribers in a 24 hour period and Live users have streamed over 120 million minutes worth of music to their consoles. → Read More
Over the last few days, Facebook has apparently been rolling out some UI changes to a small number of users, moving many of the navigation elements that currently rest at the bottom of the screen back to the left sidebar. The changes are subtle enough that they probably won’t spark yet another user rebellion against Facebook — aside from the people who will hate it automatically — but they’re very significant.
The changes in the screenshot above are nearly identical to the shots that were presented at Facebook’s developer garage a month ago. But there are some key differences. First, search now has much more prominent placement, appearing just above (and almost as an extension of) your News Feed. → Read More
If I had $3.2 million dollars to throw away on something like a phone, I’d much rather just build an army of robot carrier pigeons to deliver all my messages by hand. Some, I suppose, prefer a bit more rationale in their complete irrational purchases – thus the existence of this $3.2 million dollar iPhone. → Read More
In time for Black Friday, Microsoft and eBay are partnering to offer eBay Daily Deals to Internet Explorer 8 users directly from the browser. Via a Internet Explorer Web Slice, Microsoft will offer users the best “Daily Deals” from eBay from within the browser.
The deals will be found within Favorites Bar on IE8, and will be updated daily within the browser. In conjunction with the new feature, eBay will also launch a “12 Days of Deals” promotion that will feature a deal of the day within the browser starting tomorrow. The search feature will also let you search eBay from IE8 and will show suggest popular products on eBay to users. And you can find and preview eBay items from any site you are on without leaving the page. eBay previously launched a browser highlighter for IE last year. → Read More
Our buddies at Watchismo are offering a Nixon Newton Watch to one lucky commenter. You have your pick of the litter and you’ll be the most stylish fellow on your cellblock when you pull this watch out of wherever you hid it from the screws! → Read More
Since the 1990s, 2D fighting game series King of Fighters has always been the (smaller), and some hardcore gamers say better, counterpart to Streetfighter. Streetfighter saw not one but two live-action movies based on the thin story lines of the games, and now someone in Hollywood decided it’s time for a King of Fighters movie. And does it surprise anybody the promo trailer that was just released looks horrendous? → Read More
Hey, Bargain Hunters, what did you turn up? Report here which stores have the best deals and who actually has inventory. Don’t forget to add city and state info and we can add points to a Google Map this weekend. Don’t forget to check out our Black Friday deals on CrunchGear. → Read More
[Germany] How would you like to make money from your expert knowledge? E-Learning is a $53 billion world market that requires lots of technology and therefore is mostly tapped by universities and bigger corporations. But now a small startup from Munich aims to make everyone a distance teacher. Yesterday I ran my first online course using Conferendum, the product of a bootstrapped early-stage company that consists of only a CEO and two freelance programmers. Still they offer a fully blown platform for delivering online training via a web browser and phone.
Anyone can set up a training session in a snap, invite people and start charging. Interaction is done by screen sharing or the presentation of Powerpoint, Excel, PDF and Word documents in the learner’s browser. Participants can talk to their trainer and amongst each other by voice or chat. Conferendum also offers dial in numbers in 30 countries for people who want to attend by phone. Basically it’s a tweaked web conference tool comparable to WebEx, Genesys, GoTo Meeting or Dimdim, but with better monetization options. → Read More
Stop! Turn that car around! Roku is selling the HD-XR for half-off. There’s no reason to go to the store! The Roku is one of my favorite living room devices and it just got better. Now it’s $64.99 plus shipping and lets you watch Netflix, Amazon, and MLB content along with Facebook and Blip.tv videos. Good, good stuff. Click through to figure out how to get the deal. → Read More
Perfect for Black Friday: JustBought.it lets you share what you’re thinking of buying – or what you’ve already picked up – with your Twitter and Facebook friends in just a couple of steps.
When you sign up for the service, you can have it connect directly to your Twitter and/or Facebook account, giving you the opportunity to share your shopping experience with your social graph by letting your friends and followers know what you’ve purchased where (including pictures and product links). You can hook up with other people who have similar interests, and easily determine if you have friends who are already using the service on Gmail or Hotmail. → Read More
There are more than 100,000 approved apps in the App Store now, making it harder and harder to spot the really good ones. One of these apps that don’t get enough airtime (and that I viewed a demo of recently) is called Makibishi Comic (iTunes link) and is offered by Tokyo-based GungHo Works (it’s available in Japanese and English). → Read More
We reported today that Digital Garage, Twitter’s partner in Japan, is ready to roll out a new, Japan-only way to monetize the service. The way it’ll work is pretty simple: Japanese Twitter users will soon be able to charge their followers to view tweets – on a monthly basis or per single tweet. Otherwise they will only see excerpts or no text in the postings at all. Digital Garage gets a 30% cut.
Not charging companies for holding accounts but having users pay to view tweets? What may sound like a bold move at first actually makes sense, as the web in Japan (where I am based) features a number of peculiarities that play into the hands of Digital Garage’s Japanese operations. → Read More
So it’s been nearly 10 days since Foursquare launched its social mobile game ‘ground assault’ into 50 more cities, including a bunch of European ones. But what I’d like to know is who’s actually using it here in Europe?
Because, you see, Europeans are already quite well served by location based mobile applications like Qype, the various localised versions of Yelp, and other startups like Rummble. And there are increasingly new kids on the block like Flook.
What is clear however, is that only Foursquare and Gowalla (at least to my knowledge) have come up with this gaming approach to ‘checking in’ which has attracted so much interest from high profile blogs like TechCrunch and bloggers like Robert Scoble.
The question is, which will scale and ultimate prove the winner? Because – at least in this instance – we have two distinct approaches to the issue of social, mobile and location. → Read More
