Yammer founder and CEO David Sacks came all the way from his office upstairs from us to talk about his new $25 million round of funding. We discuss a lot of interesting things in this clip including why Sacks says Yammer wasn’t everyone’s new favorite word, a pivot; why he still loves Geni, the company Yammer spun out of that we don’t hear nearly as much about; why more social-media-for-the-enterprise companies haven’t taken off; and his defense of the freemium business model.
Make sure you stay to the end, when I ask Sacks about a rumor floating around Silicon Valley that he tried to put a deal together with Yammer and Twitter back before the company even launched. Bonus: Sacks- as tactfully as possible- says what TechCrunch’s Yammer usage tells us about our company culture. → Read More
Are you thinking about picking up an Android tablet for Christmas? Stop. Stop right now. It’s a bad idea. Whether you spend $600 on a Galaxy Tab or $250 on a Nook Color or this Kyros thing, it’s a bad idea.
They’re all cut-rate, beta products that will be obsoleted shortly by Android 2.3 and 3.0 devices. Sorry for souring the milk with this little editorial, Coby, but you know it’s true. → Read More
On December 13, TechCrunch Europe is coming to Moscow, Russia, for our first ever “TechCrunch Moscow”. The event will be held at the first
Russian private tech incubator, the Digital October Center, located in a historical manufacturing building Krasny Oktyabr (or “Red October” / Красный Октябрь in Russian). You can now buy tickets here. TechCrunch Moscow attendees will enjoy a full day packed with speeches by the leaders of the industry, networking opportunities and a chance to preview promising Russian tech startups.
You can now check out the dedicated event web site here.
Co-organised by TechCrunch Europe together with Kite Ventures and Telemarker, the conference will focus on the key issues regarding tech entrepreneurship in Russia. TechCrunch Moscow is about supporting the startup and venture capital eco-system in Moscow and Russia. It’s also about uncovering the trends and the hottest companies and startups in the market right now. If you are in Europe for Le Web and want to spend a few productive days in Moscow, TechCrunch Moscow is your chance to check out the scene there. → Read More
Amidst everyone in the world writing about the $5.3 billion dollar Google Groupon offer at the moment, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the deal has not yet been sealed and that the Groupon’s board of directors is holding a conference call tomorrow to decide on whether or not they will accept Google’s offer. → Read More
That right there is a 16GB USB drive. It’s crafted out of scrap of rosewood, brass thingies and an analog gauge for good measure. All for $395 plus shipping. But this isn’t the most expensive flash drive in this guy’s Etsy store. Nope that honor goes to this 4GB drive that costs $600. I’ll take both, thankyouverymuch. → Read More
Flook, which we’ve previously described as a StumbleUpon for location-based discovery, has partnered with English Heritage, the UK government’s quango responsible for helping preserve historical landmarks, such as famous sites like Stonehenge and Hadrian’s Wall.
Under the arrangement, English Heritage is working with flook to let users ‘discover’ almost 400 British castles, ruined abbeys and stately homes via the startup’s iPhone app. Flook already has similar content partnerships with Reveal Kings Cross, Postal Heritage and the British Library. → Read More
The United Nations Climate Change Conference kicked off yesterday in Cancun, Mexico. Delegates from 192 nations are attending through December 10, hoping to determine a collective, international approach to slowing and preparing countries for an increase in global temperatures.
Conference goals— laid out at an opening address by Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)— include the establishment of: commitments from countries to stop deforestation, a fund worth approximately $100 billion-a-year by 2013 to help poor people cope with climate change, and mechanisms that facilitate technology transfer between nations. → Read More
In some families, the holidays are a chance to take out the old model train, have it run around the house a bit, and revel in nostalgia. At Tokyo’s Make Fair, however, the model train is just another hobby to be taken to extremes. This awesome train was spotted a couple days ago, and is probably about as large as you can get (1:8.4) before you start having to apply for a moving vehicle license for the thing. → Read More
If we’re to believe Steam, then Battlefield: Vietnam will be released on December 18 of this year. Two weeks and counting! → Read More
It has finally happened. It took a little longer than anticipated, but Chrome has now passed Firefox as the browser most often used to visit TechCrunch. For the month of November, Chrome is number one for the first time, edging out Firefox 27.80 percent to 27.67 percent.
Back in early September, on Chrome’s second birthday, we noted that Google’s browser had been making huge gains over the past couple of years and was only about 3 percent away from passing longtime leader (again, in terms of browsing traffic to TechCrunch) Firefox. The quickly progressing Firefox 4 beta likely slowed Chrome’s march to the top a bit, but it couldn’t fully hold it back. Now the question is: can Chrome hang on? → Read More
At the beginning of October, we pulled the curtain back on a certain Jungle device from Panasonic, but there’s been little chatter since its dramatic debut. But in an email recently sent to some users, Panasonic appears to be fishing for testers for the device. Could we be approaching a public hands-on? → Read More
Two days after Internet whistleblower WikiLeaks released 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables to major media organizations including the New York Times and Der Spiegel, international police organization Interpol has placed founder Julian Assange on its wanted list for “Sex Crimes,” in a warrant issued by the Public Prosecution Office in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The Interpol mediated charges here are in connection with rape allegations made by two different Swedish women back in August. → Read More
The Europas, the European Startup Awards, were held recently in London. It was the culmination of a month of online voting by the European tech startup industry for the finalists, where some 33,126 votes were cast across 23 categories, eight judges deliberated over the results and over 350 people joined the cream of Europe’s startups, VCs and entrepreneurs on the 31st story of stunning venue with amazing views over central London.
A huge thanks to our awesome sponsors Moonfruit, Winston & Strawn / Bootlaw, Latitude, Fidelity Growth Partners Europe, TechHub and video streaming partner Newspepper.
Here are the winners and finalists and here’s a Wrap video of the event:
TechCrunch Europe / The Europas 2010 Final Cut from Newspepper on Vimeo.
Heartland Robotics today announced that it raised $20 million in a series B venture round led by Highland Capital Partners. Other investors include Sigma Partners and existing investors Bezos Expeditions and Charles River Ventures. The Boston-based company previously raised $7 million in August, 2009.
The founder of Heartland Robotics is Rodney Brooks, a former AI reseracher at MIT and one of the co-founders of iRobot. Instead of making robot vacuum cleaners, time around Brooks is developing a new class of manufacturing robots. I normally don’t quote from a press release, but this Brooks quote sounds like something straight out of an Isaac Asimov novel: → Read More
*Now* do you people understand why Net Neutrality isn’t merely some thing that Slashdot-dwelling sysadmins argue about during lunchtime? Surely you’ve heard by now that Comcast, one of the largest Internet Service Providers in the U.S., has been fiddling with Netflix traffic? But no, Net Neutrality isn’t worth defending, right? → Read More
Reader Grant posted this comment when I asked for great Black Friday stories. His is the greatest:
some friends and I were hanging out, buying random stuff on Newegg, until about 11:30 on thursday. We then decided to head out to the mall area, and the lines were so long we wondered what to do. We were driving my Ford E-350 van, and the cargo bay happened to be full of about 30 two pound cooking pumpkins. What did we do? We pulled my van up to people in the lines, jumped out of the bay doors, shouted out “Everyone gets a pumpkin!”, handed pumpkins to everyone, then drove off, shouting “PUMPKIN MOBILE, OUT!”
We got a mention in the local paper.
Virgin’s somewhat highly-anticipated Project iPad magazine went live early this morning. Its focus is on “design, entertainment, technology, entrepreneurs” and its format is kin to other attempts at next-generation magazines, though I’d say this one is more successful.
Of course, it requires an iPad with 4.2 to enjoy, and while five or six million of those have been sold, not everybody will get a chance to check this thing out. So I put together a little video walkthrough for you guys. → Read More
Is there no escape from the Playboy franchise? Jolt Online, the Ireland-based social games publisher that was acquired by GameStop last December, has unveiled its latest Facebook game: Playboy Party.
Described as featuring “pretty much all the things that you can imagine from a Facebook Playboy game” – I haven’t a clue what that means – the accompanying press release assures us that you’ll “find it entertaining”.
“This is our Christmas present to the Internet”, proudly boasts Dylan Collins, Chairman of Jolt Online Gaming. “We almost went blind developing this game but we think that Playboy Party will keep you entertained anywhere you can access your Facebook account”.
Ooh err. → Read More
Earlier today, Winamp released a new version of its Android application that allowed users to sync their music wirelessly with their Windows desktop (disclosure: Winamp and TechCrunch are both owned by AOL). It’s a great feature, but in the race to become the ‘iTunes of Android’, another contender may already be about to lap Winamp.
We’ve been tracking DoubleTwist and its close affiliation with Android for over a year now. The company offers a desktop media player that looks a lot like iTunes (which is no accident given the ‘iTunes for Android’ theme), and it’s added support for the Android App Store, a music store through Amazon MP3′s API, and a directory of Podcasts. Today it’s launching what’s probably its coolest feature yet: wireless sync. And it’s not just for music — DoubleTwist will let you wirelessly sync your movies, music, and photos. → Read More
Back in July we wrote about bootleg film site TVShack.net rapidly moving offshore to the Australian-located TVShack.cc address in order to escape ICE’s shutdown of about nine sites. We took bets on when the feds would eventually shut down the new site, and lo and behold five months later the domain is seized in a takedown of about 80 or so other copyright infringing sites. → Read More
