In a short amount of time since its launch in April, 2009 and its redesign a year later, realtime analytics startup Chartbeat has gained an impressive following of more than 2,500 paying corporate customers. All of this was done so far with 5 employees, led by general manager Tony Haile.
Now, the betaworks-incubated company has gained an impressive roster of investors in a $3 million Series A financing. The round was led by Index Ventures, and includes some serious superangels such as Ron Conway’s SV Angel, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Chris Dixon’s Founder Collective, Lerer Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Freestyle Capital, betaworks, Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC, and Jason Calacanis. With the funding, Chartbeat will be spun off as its own separate company, just as betawork’s bit.ly was before it. → Read More
In a short amount of time since its launch in April, 2009 and its redesign a year later, realtime analytics startup Chartbeat has gained an impressive following of more than 2,500 paying corporate customers. All of this was done so far with 5 employees, led by general manager Tony Haile.
Now, the betaworks-incubated company has gained an impressive roster of investors in a $3 million Series A financing. The round was led by Index Ventures, and includes some serious superangels such as Ron Conway’s SV Angel, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Chris Dixon’s Founder Collective, Lerer Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Freestyle Capital, betaworks, Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC, and Jason Calacanis. With the funding, Chartbeat will be spun off as its own separate company, just as betawork’s bit.ly was before it. → Read More
Apptio, a Bellevue, Washington-based provider of SaaS-delivered Technology Business Management solutions this morning announced that it has closed a $16.5 million Series C round – the company has now raised up to $37.5 million in venture capital.
The financing round, which the company says was oversubscribed, was led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from all current investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners and Madrona Venture Group. → Read More
Showroomprive, which claims to have the No. 2 spot in European private sales sites after Vente Privee, has raised 37 million euros from Accel Partners for a minority stake. The members’ only fashion e-commerce site which sells designer brands at discount prices was founded in France but entered the Spanish market this year and is growing quickly.
Three years after launch Showroomprive claims to be the second online sales site in France with 3 million members and 75 millions euros of revenue in 2009. It’s now aiming for 140 millions euros and
6 millions members. In 2010 it partnered with Orange.fr for “privileged sales,” launched in Spain and is soon launching a mobile app. Showroomprive will invest in a new warehouse to increase capacity and also look to acquire.
Yes folks, it’s time to roll-up all those private sales sites in Europe. → Read More
Next November, it will be three years since AOL acquired Israeli startup Yedda in an effort to foray into the online Q&A service business.
Today, Yedda is finally graduating to a full-fledged AOL property with the ‘launch’ of AOL Answers (or Aol Answers, still not sure about that). → Read More
Hopefully you’re reading this as you’re waking up with access to Gmail Priority Inbox. Jason already posted his review/overview last night, so I figured I’d just talk a bit about how I’ve been using it for the past several days since Google turned it on for me to test out on my account. My opinion of it is in-line with Jason’s — once you fine-tune it, it’s game-changingly awesome. There is simply no way I could ever go back to using Gmail without it enabled. So how have I tuned it?
First of all, before you get started, I highly recommend that you watch the overview video Google made for the feature. It’s two minutes long, and makes the basics easy to understand. For most people, the basics are probably good enough. But for people who get a lot of email, you’re going to want to go a bit deeper.
My favorite aspect of Priority Inbox is the settings that allows you to create four different sections of your inbox. Yes, you could previously do this with the Multiple Inboxes feature, but these new settings make things much easier to understand and implement. The three default sections here are: “Important & unread,” “Starred,” and “Everything else” — but there’s an option to add a fourth, which you should. You should create a new label that you can quickly tag emails with. For example, I chose “A1″ since “A” shows up first in the Labels drop down menu. Set this section (which is actually the second section) to show emails with that label. → Read More
The EPA’s Proposed Vehicle Window Stickers Give Cars A Letter Grade Video: Hello Kitty iPod/iPhone Speaker Dock Now On Sale In Japan: Hand-Knitted Super Mario Sweaters 2-Kilovolt Washer Launcher Makes The Greatest Noise Ever Retro City Rampage Will Have The Sweetest Swag At PAX → Read More
It’s like clockwork. 9 PM PT rolls around on Monday evening, and Apple rolls out an update to the iTunes Store. You see, Tuesday is the day that new movies and music are typically released in the U.S., so it makes sense to overhaul the store at this time to show off that new content. Only tonight, that didn’t happen. Why? Because why roll out an update when you’re going to completely overhaul the store the following day?
As you’re probably well aware, Apple is holding an event in San Francisco this Wednesday. They tend to hold events related to iTunes and the iPod every year around this time, though this is a little earlier than normal. The invitation gives every indication that it will be music-related, but it will likely be more than that. Speculation is mounting that we’ll see an update to the Apple TV, called iTV, and some new iPod hardware as well. But iTunes itself is also due for some changes, and that’s very likely why we’re not seeing any updates tonight. → Read More
If you live in San Francisco and you haven’t tried UberCab yet, do it. The service, which we first covered in July, eliminates everything bad about a taxi experience. In my order, that’s flagging one down, finding the cash to pay, and being in a sometimes disgusting car.
UberCab contracts with black car services – mostly Towncars and Escalades. There’s a lot of unused inventory in those businesses and they are happy to work with someone who eats up that inventory. As a user you download an iPhone app (I have it on my iPad) and add your credit card information (that’s the last time you ever have to deal with that). When you want a car to pick you up you hit a button. The app knows where you are and finds a car and driver nearby. The driver accepts via his/her own iPhone app, and you then get to watch them come to you on a map with a pretty darn good estimate of the number of minutes it will take for them to get there. When they arrive you get in the car and tell the driver where you want to go. When you get there you see the charges and accept them, which are then billed to your credit card, tip included. A receipt is emailed to you. And then each side gets to rate the other – I love the fact that the driver rates the passenger, too. Makes for good tips and a happy overall transaction. Watch a demo video here.
When I tried UberCab a few days ago I had to wait just 5 minutes for the car to arrive (a big Mercedes), and the overall experience was way better than a taxi. → Read More
In May 2009, I wrote a post speculating about something called “Magic Inbox.” What was so special about it? It was a reference found in the code of Gmail by the blog Google Operating System, and appeared to point to a new Gmail feature that would sort your email with the help of your social connections. Many of us wondered if such a feature would be launching soon. But that never happened. Well, until tonight, that is. Magic Inbox is the new Gmail Priority Inbox.
Gmail Product Director Keith Coleman made that revelation during our meeting with him last week to discuss the new Priority Inbox. Magic Inbox had been in testing at Google for a long, long time leading up to this launch. “We went through so many versions of this,” Coleman said. In fact, Coleman noted that the idea to prioritze email based on who you contact that most was an original idea for Gmail itself, but no one could nail the combination of user interface and features. Obviously now, they think they have. → Read More
“Digg v4 is not a redesign, not a reskin, it is a 100% rewrite. It’s completely new design, code, architecture, and infrastructure. It has almost no relationship to the v3 system whatsoever.“
Social news site Digg is currently in the particularly bloody throes of its fifth user revolt, and unlike revolts one through four, we’ve heard that Digg is absolutely positively not capitulating to users on this one.
Has Kevin Rose finally decided to heed our advice? It’s not so cut and dry according to former Digg engineer Ian Eure who wrote “They Can’t Go Back” on his personal blog earlier today. One reason they can’t move backward? Talent, Eure emphasizes. → Read More
Navigating maps on computers and mobile devices can still be a clunky experience, especially when you try to search for places on a map. Typically, on Google Maps or Bing Maps, you get a bunch of virtual pushpins for each place which you can click on for more information.
UpNext, a 3D mapping startup based in New York City, brings that information forward in amore fluid way in the latest release of its iPad app. As you push the 3D map around with your fingers, labels for specific searches or your friends’ recent Foursquare checkins pop open as they come into view. UpNext calls this the Fluid Labeling System, and you can see it in action in the video after the jump. → Read More
This is sheer speculation, but I’m thinking that having a complete retro-style box, rental-style plastic case, and old-school-mom-and-pop-style fabricated receipt is going to pretty much make Retro City Rampage the must-have swag stop at PAX. The game looks pretty awesome, too. → Read More
Watch out, Nike. Power Laces has your number. Of course you have the patent, but let’s not get hung on up on the ‘deets. Power Lace’s enterprising creator is already on the second generation of his self-tightening shoes and it looks surprising similar to Nike’s just-granted patent — complete with heel sensor. This guy is going for broke, though, and is currently seeking funding via KickerStarter. I’m not sure I would would drain the trust fund to allow the guy to quickly hit his $25,000 goal after seeing the Nike patent, but a few dollar bet at least makes this guys day. Plus it could net you a t-shirt or some rad 80′s-themed stickers. A $250 donation will get you the first generation if the target goal is reached.
Anyway, enough, you must click through to see the demo video. It’s surprisingly nice. Marty would approve. (You knew I had to throw in at least one Back To The Future joke) → Read More
Just as I was reading Paul Carr’s latest column about quitting social media, my husband looked at his phone and broke into a huge smile. He is a graphic designer and has long been a fan of Chank Fonts. Earlier that day, he’d taken a picture of a retro-looking podiatrist office, posting it on Twitter with the word “Font-o-licious.” It didn’t go viral. It didn’t become a trending topic. It didn’t get him 1,000 new followers or even attract much attention at all. But it was noticed by Chank Diesel of Chank Fonts who Tweeted “I’m gonna dedicate my next font to that type-savvy podiatrist” and started following my husband.
Here in front of me was one of those serendipitous moments of social media collapsing space-and-time. These moments don’t change the world, but they’re exactly what made social media so addictive in the first place. Imagine an industry hero of yours who seemed untouchable creating a product just because of a random picture you posted on an ever-moving stream of colliding information that he happened to see. Here, in the guise of my beaming husband, was the perfect articulation for why I think people—even my close friends— who declare dramatic social media bankruptcy were just doing it wrong. → Read More
Email overload has finally met its match. Tomorrow, Gmail is rolling out a new feature called Priority Inbox that is going to be a Godsend for those of you who dread opening your email. In short, Google has built a system that figures out which of your messages are important, and presents them at the top of the screen so you don’t miss them. The rest of your messages are still there, but you don’t have to dig through dozens of newsletters and confirmations to find the diamonds in rough.
The beauty of the system lies in its simplicity — it’s nearly as easy as Gmail’s one click spam filter. There’s almost no setup: once it’s activated on your account, you’ll see a prompt asking you if you want to enable Priority Inbox. You can choose from a few options (the order of your various inboxes and if there are any contacts you’d like to always mark ‘Important’) but don’t have to setup any rules or ‘teach’ Gmail what you want it to mark important. It just works, at least most of the time. → Read More
With the Samsung Epic 4G launching very soon, here’s an interesting alternative view of the device. If you dig around enough on the FCC website, you’ll be able to find nude pictures of almost every phone. Sometimes they are barely legal shots, like this Samsung Epic 4G. → Read More
Denver, Colorado based MapMyFitness, Inc has just announced raising $5 Million in a Series A round of financing lead by Austin Ventures. The health-related social network and training application company operates a network of sites including MapMyFitness.com, MapMyRide.com, MapMyRun.com, MapMyTri.com, MapMyWalk.com, MapMyHike.com, and MapMyMountain.com.
The MapMyFitness community gives their over two million members the ability to record and store their various running, cycling, walking and hiking routes as well as access to a database of international routes, fitness calculators, and events listings. → Read More
LG seems to be planning on dominating the 3D OLED market this coming year, and will be showing a few examples of their technology off at IFA this week. The current jewel in their crown is a 31-inch, 2.9mm thin OLED display. This will earn LG the title of “world’s thinnest OLED TV”. At least until someone else comes out with something thinner. → Read More
Perhaps you’ve noticed that a couple days ago we flipped the switch to enable the shiny new commenting system here on TechCrunch powered by Disqus. So far, the feedback has been very, very positive — and we’re pleased with how well it’s performing. But Disqus is just one step of what we need to do.
As many of you are well aware, the commenting situation on TechCrunch has been completely out of control for a long, long time. That seems to be one unfortunate side effect of when a site gets large enough (see: YouTube and Digg for other great examples). But we also realize that things don’t have to be that way. Some popular sites have very good comments (see: Hacker News and Quora for good examples of that). We’d like our comment section to be useful too. So we’re going to try to do something about that. → Read More
