Floobs, a livestreaming video startup, says it is poised to file for bankruptcy today or tomorrow.
Nordic regional tech blog ArcticStartup has confirmed the news with the founders, who cite sales of their B2B product not matching their current burn rate. Floobs was based out of Helsinki.
Co-founder Kai Lemmetty says they were due to close an angel round before Christmas, but this didn’t happen after one of the parties backed out, collapsing the deal. → Read More
Twitter has just implemented a change that may well have a massive impact on the service. The company has revamped its highly controversial Suggested User List, in favor of a list of Suggestions based on topic. That’s big news in and of itself (before Twitter’s suggestions were not categorized), but there’s also apparently no way to add all of these users to your account at once. In other words, members of the SUL will likely see their user growth counts take a big hit. You can try out the new suggestions page for yourself here.
Update: Twitter employee Josh Elman has just posted about the change on the Twitter blog. One thing worth pointing out: these lists are now generated with algorithms, and will be updated regularly. If the algorithm decides a certain user isn’t appealing to new Twitter members, they may be removed from the list: → Read More
I don’t know, guys, something about a Michael Jackson 3D video making its début at the Grammy Awards this year. You need to get the glasses at Target or Staples. 3D stinks, we all know. All it’s going to take is a big-shot director to give a speech at the Academy Awards saying, “Can we cut it out with this 3D garbage?” Then the next day we’ll be all, “Yeah, I never liked 3D to begin with!” → Read More
Plenty of ink has been spilled detailing how wildly succesful Apple’s App Store has been, which now counts well over 100,000 applications. However, this huge number of apps presents a challenge: it’s hard to actually find interesting new apps when there are so many to choose from. Apple does its best to highlight quality applications in the store, and it offers a Genius feature, but that often leaves something to be desired. AppStoreHQ is a site that’s looking to help make app recommendations using a new source of data: Twitter. The site generates recommendations based on who is tweeting about iPhone apps, and can generate recommendations for you based on your own tweets.
The site looks at Twitter’s public stream, checking tweets for links back to the App Store. Every time someone links to an app, they treat that as a vote from that user. When you visit the site’s homepage, you can browse through the apps that are currently the hottest on Twitter or on the web (the latter is determined by apps with the most blog post mentions). → Read More
[UK] More consolidation in the UK online property listing sector.
AND, the digital consumer division of A&N Media (part of DMGT plc) and parent of The Digital Property Group (TDPG), has announced that it’s acquired 50% of Globrix, the UK’s largest free-to-list property search engine.
Interestingly, this isn’t just about TDPG firming up its strong position in the space – the group already operates PrimeLocation.com, FindaProperty.com and FindaNewHome.co.uk, making it the second most visited of the UK property portals – but also appears to be in-part a technology play. → Read More
The Bay Area News Project, a non-profit media organization providing hyper local news to the San Francisco area, has announced a deal to provide news to the New York Times. The content will be used for The New York Times’ local San Francisco editions on Friday and Saturday. The deal with the New York Times has been rumored to be in negotiations but was officially announced today.
The project, which was announced last year, has received $5 million in funding from financier Warren Hellman. The site, which has a staff of nearly 30 journalists, is also supported by KQED-FM (Though it appears that deal has ended) and University of California, Berkeley’s graduate school of journalism. The Project as also brought on former McKinsey partner Lisa Frazier as CEO and Jonathan Weber, the co-founder and editor in chief of The Industry Standard, as the site’s editor in chief. → Read More
Free dating tip: If the girl you’re talking to isn’t impressed by your Playboy belt, make sure to mention that it’s got a built-in spy camera capable of recording DVD-resolution video footage. If that doesn’t work, then clearly she’ll never be impressed by anything. Time to move on. → Read More
[UK/Spain] Experienced Internet entrepreneur Toby Rowland has joined the board of Spanish startup eRepublik Labs, the social strategy games publisher.
Rowland’s many achievements include co-founding King.com, which he took from startup to be a major player in the casual gaming space. And while VP of Marketing at uDate.com, he helped grow the online dating site to be number two in the US and UK. In December 2002, uDate.com acquired by IAC for $150 million. His latest venture is maths game site Mangahigh.com, where he also serves as CEO.
Therefore, having Rowland join the board of eRepublik seems quite a coup. → Read More
Google Just announced earnings for the fourth quarter. Revenues were up 17 percent to $6.7 billion, while non-GAAP earnings increased 35 percent to $2.2 billion, or 6.79 per share. That is well above the analyst consensus of $6.50 a share.
Revenues for the full year ended up being $23.65 billion, up from $21.8 billion in 2008. Net income for 2009 was $6.5 billion.
Google’s revenue in the quarter was broken down 66 percent (or $4.4 billion) from its own sites and 31 percent (or $2 billion) from AdSense revenues across its advertising network. The other 3 percent came from licensing and other businesses. While the Google’s ad revenue on its own sites increased 16 percent, AdSense revenues grew an even faster 21 percent.
The slides and conference call notes after the jump. → Read More
If you’ve ever tried to listen in on a Google earnings call on the web, it’s kind of a pain. That’s especially true if you use a Mac because Google insists that you use either Real Player (which is awful on the Mac) or Windows Media Player (which doesn’t work on a Mac). Of course, you could always call into an actual phone number, but who does that anymore? Thankfully, for its Q4 2009 earnings being announced this afternoon, Google has made things easier.
Gone are the options to listen via Real Player or Windows Media Player. Instead, you have one option: Webcast on YouTube. Google has set up a YouTube account, GoogleIR (investor relations) that will host the earnings call and the follow-up Q&A session. All you need is a web browser with Flash installed to listen in. Currently, you’ll heard the traditional classical music that plays while everyone waits for the call to start. → Read More
In a defining speech today on Internet Freedom, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton extended foreign policy to the Internet, calling it a “global networked commons.” Her speech harked back to Franklin Roosevelt’s famous Four Freedoms speech, and updated each one (Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Worship, Freedom From Want, Freedom From Fear) to apply to the Internet. She also added a new freedom, the Freedom to Connect:
The freedom to connect – the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly in cyber space.
Apparently, it is now the U.S. government’s foreign policy to protect and promote these freedoms throughout the information “commons” which extend beyond our physical borders. It is also U.S. foreign policy to encourage corporations, particularly those in the technology industry, to protect these freedoms. Call it corporate statecraft. Towards the end of the speech, Clinton applauded Google’s recent decision to rethink whether it will continue to operate in China following coordinated cyber attacks on its operations there. Not only that, she encouraged other companies to follow Google’s lead: → Read More
Oh, the ironing. Big Daddy Cool, John Biggs, just interviewed Casey Hudson, from BioWare, about Mass Effect 2. It was streamed live! The beauty is, while they were talking about the game, kids with modded Xbox 360s all over the world were already playing the game. Yes, the game has leaked. Granted, it’s only a few days before the game actually comes out, but still, the biggest release of the year (so far) is now available where you find such things. I’ll be getting the PC version via Steam, thank you very much. (There’s nothing after this. Clicking Read More is a waste of your time.) → Read More
Whoo! Looks like free turn-by-turn navigation wasn’t the only good news to come out of Nokia’s press announcement earlier today. → Read More
For a while, the only way to play the location-based Foursquare was through its iPhone app or the scant mobile website. Then came an Android app, opening the game to a whole new group of users. And now, BlackBerry users are getting the love.
The service is officially launching on the BlackBerry today after several weeks in private beta testing with a few hundred users. Specifically, the app with work on all 8000 and 9000 series devices (any BlackBerry with a trackball), and it will also work with the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm, but Foursquare notes that a special version built for that device is in the works too. → Read More
Most in-vehicle device mounts are expensive given their purpose. Please hold my phone in one place, here’s $30. Bah! Using few pieces of pipe, some craft foam, and a bit of plastic-coated wire, you can create your own vehicle mount quickly and cheaply. → Read More
It’s official: the European Commission has granted regulatory approval for Oracle to acquire Sun Microsystems for approximately $7.4 billion, without further conditions. In a statement released moments ago, Oracle says it expects unconditional approval from China and Russia as well and intends to close the transaction shortly.
Oracle will host an all-day live event for customers, partners, press and analysts on January 27th, 2010 at 9:00 AM Pacific time at its headquarters in Redwood Shores, CA. → Read More
For the average person, a bunch of seemingly meaningless text on a 2-color screen is by no means the definition of excitement. But you.. you.. you’re no average person. You’re a gadget lover – and tucked away behind the glare spot on that screen is a gem to be held close to the chest until the end of time. Or at least until next week, when we’re all distracted by something else. → Read More
Ever since RIM got their act together with the BlackBerry Storm 2, we’ve been pretty excited about their new-found interest in touchscreens. When word got out not too long ago that RIM was cracking away on a half-touchscreen/half-keyboard hybrid handset (think BlackBerry Bold, with a touchscreen), we started getting all hot around the collar. Word on the street (the cell phone rumor street. It’s a tough place.) indicated the handset’s nickname was “Magnum”. Aaaaaand here it is – or at least an early prototype which the guys over at CrackBerry say has been scrapped in lieu of something “nicer”. You know, I think I’d be just fine with the one pictured up above – but hey, bloggers can’t be choosers. → Read More
This Star Wars Play-Doh playset is for ages three AND UP – you’re all part of “and up” unless you’re a really smart baby who reads tech blogs for some reason. If you are such a baby, please apply for an internship. We’ll take anybody – anybody – who can appeal to toddlers. That’s a huge, untapped demographic for us and it’d be nice to write for people at or around our same level of intellect, maturity, and tableside manners. → Read More
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