It will soon be possible to compare the performance of search and social ad campaigns side by side. Clickable, the ad management platform that lets search marketers measure and track the performance of their online marketing campaigns across different search engines and advertising networks, will be adding Facebook Ads as an option on April 12.
What that means is that an advertiser buying pay-per-click ads on Google can test the performance of those search ads against pay-per-click ads on Facebook targeted to particular social demographics. Search ads versus social ads, all in one dashboard. According to this sign-up page on Clickable: → Read More
If you head over to Hulu right now and start watching a video, you’ll notice that the site has turned on a new 3D feature. At least, it looks like they were trying to — when you click the button, the site instead opens a video marked “Hulu Confidential — For Internal Use Only” (looks like there’s a pretty major typo in their code).
The video is a ten minute documentary detailing the long-running conspiracy behind Hulu’s alien plot to turn our brains into goo. It begins with footage of television pioneer Philo Farnsworth (an alien-sounding name, indeed), winds through the 20th century, and concludes with Hulu, which finally helped TV’s brain-melting content expand its reach well beyond the living room. → Read More
For the past several months, I’ve given WolframAlpha a hard time. I actually think the service is pretty cool, I just think they drastically overpriced their iPhone app. The computational engine was trying to get users to pay $50 for the information they could access for free online. Sure, there’s something to be said for an iPhone-tailored experience, but $50 was just ridiculous. And guess who now agrees? WolframAlpha.
The service has slashed — and I do mean slashed — the price of the app from $49.99 all the way down to $1.99. Yes, they’ve discounted it $48. That’s a 96% price reduction. And not just that — they’re offering to refund the price difference to anyone who did pay the ridiculous price for the app. → Read More
Looking for more ways to go green? Powerplus just introduced the Leopard, a solar-powered universal remote that can charge its internal lithium-ion battery using either direct sunlight or artificial light. Basically, if you keep it facing up in a lit room, you will never have to worry about running out of batteries again. → Read More
The first iPad reviews, from tech grand-daddies David Pogue and Walt Mossberg among others, are live. Go read. Don’t have the patience? Shame on you, and TL;DR follows. → Read More
http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/4ae8d36a3102598f/4bb3f42c0b0829a0/4ae8d36a3102598f/2eaf9820/-cpid/7bc13ecb198ebf28 It’s not the kind of hands-on that will satisfy hardcore blog-readers, but the last time anyone saw one of these things in real life, Steve Jobs was announcing it. → Read More
Time to live blog April Fools 2010! Some of us got a jump start on the time-honored tradition (not to name any names here), but we still have about 24 hours of shenanigans left. As the new hire, I have the dubious honor of managing the TechCrunch April Fool’s Scorecard.
If you spot a good one please leave it in the comments. I can’t promise you a TechCrunch T-shirt, but I may get to keep my job. Here’s the definitive list of 2010 April Fools jokes. We’ll update it regularly over the next 24 hours. → Read More
Of all the things I need to fold, towels are the easiest. Probably because before long, they’ll be hanging on towel hooks, so there’s no pressure to fold them in any particularly attractive way. This robot is much more dignified, though, it must be said, very slow. That said, the sped-up video gives it an agreeable birdlike quality, does it not? [via CNET] → Read More
Look up to see their beautiful craft emerging from the heavens. There should be no doubting that aliens helped create the wonders of the world now. Clearly they are masters at simple tools. [via Reddit] → Read More
I tried a few ways of making that familiar playground taunt work syllable-wise, but it was not meant to be. Slightly more propitious is this agreement between the ambitious (but troubled) One Laptop Per Child initiative and Pixel Qi, maker of innovative hybrid displays. Pixel Qi’s sunlight-readable display technology (seen most recently in the Notion Ink Adam) was spun off more than two years ago, but they just couldn’t keep themselves apart. How romantic! I guess sometimes you just know you’re destined to be together. → Read More
It’s nice that these hard drives should be announced right in the middle of a week of rugged camera reviews. You probably remember LaCie’s Rugged XL series of hard drives — but they’re more rugged and not at all waterproof. These A70s from Silicon-Power are waterproof, pressure-proof, and shockproof. Drop ‘em, take ‘em into the bath, or sit on ‘em all day — go ahead, they love it. → Read More
Mmm… megapixely. [via PDNPulse, Daily Front Row, Pretty Foods] → Read More
We’ll soon live in an age when netbooks have both CPUs and GPUs and it will be grand. Unicorns and rainbows will dance off of our screens in harmony — and Internet Explorer might become relevant again. The video after the jump shows what IE9 is capable of when a next-generation Nvidia Ion GPU is paired with an Intel Atom CPU verses a standard netbook with an Atom all by itself. The differences are obvious and makes a solid case for Internet Explorer. But most of us will probably visit the International Space Station before setting IE as our default browser even if it renders graphics faster. → Read More
Hey! You there! Do you want to see a new Super Mario Galaxy 2 trailer? No, not an old one—a new one! Well here you go~! → Read More
I have no doubt that many of our readers have watched Planet Earth and possibly the newer Life, perhaps the two grandest nature documentaries ever made. If so, you probably caught yourself wondering “How the hell did they get that shot?” — perhaps during the mating dance of the birds of paradise.
The “diaries” which accompanied the show revealed a few of the secrets, one of which was the immense amount of time spent by the camera guys in what they call hides: camouflaged shelters from which they can shoot without worrying about being spotted, and in which they may often stay for hours, days, or even weeks at a time. → Read More
Those you you who’ve been following the CrunchPad project since we first announced it in the summer of 2008 weren’t too happy to hear about the recent…hiccups…that we continue to fight through.
But never fear, while we continue to clean up the mess that our Asian contractor left behind we’ve been hard at work on a new project that lets anyone create an iPad like device from any laptop screen. It’s called the CrunchPad Kit and it goes on sale now. Best of all, we’re selling this for just $49 as an introductory price. Once 800 have sold, or about $44,000 in revenue, we’ll be moving to a higher price.
Full video below: → Read More
Do you want to know about TV everywhere? Like what might happen after the Comcast-NBC merger is complete? Or how technologists and financiers see the digital-content market evolving? So do we. That’s why we invited insiders like Avner Ronen and Quincy Smith to speak at Disrupt, our media and technology conference taking place May 24-26, 2010, in New York.
Get your ticket now, because early-bird pricing expires at midnight.
We’re also running a competition for –you guessed it– disruptive startups. As those of you who follow TechCrunch events know, attending is a chance to see tomorrow’s big names.
Disrupt speakers are the gutsy people unafraid to offer an opinion and take disruptive steps in media and technology. We’re thrilled that other speakers include… → Read More
Good on FedEx, for doing this. The USPS has been talking about going electric for their fleet, and it makes sense. After all, they put massive amounts of miles on their vehicles, and that’s got to make for a pretty serious carbon foot print. → Read More
We know iPhone OS 4 is in the pipes, and I imagine this little nugget of information is far from the only inklings we’ll have of new iPhone features over the next few months. Despite the extraordinary length of the Apple Insider article, there’s really only one piece of new information: the iPhone will be using an Expose-like interface to let you switch between apps, though due to scaling issues it is apparently only using the apps’ icons and not current screenshots. It’ll be triggered, they say, by quickly tapping the home button twice. Not terribly exciting, but it’s good to know. Personally, I still find Palm’s card approach the most accessible multi-tasking around. If this Expose thing works, I’m sure it’ll be convenient, but will it have the amount of power a true task manager should have, or is it just going to be quicker than hitting home once and finding the app yourself? → Read More
Well, I hate to be the one to break this news to y’all, but here we are. You know the “green” movement, where companies try to say things like, “Oh, our products are more safe for the environment than our competitors’ products”? I don’t want to say it’s complete nonsense, but the scientist who devised the Gaia theory—our planet is an organism, and we should do our best to ensure its survival—has just said that there’s no chance in hell that we’re going to save the planet. His advice? “Enjoy life while you can.” So, so amazing. → Read More
