Twitter has collapsed its “Followed By” and “You Both Follow” features into one area called “Connections” which allows you to see what users you have in common with other Twitter users. While you still can’t see the number of users you have in common, the individual features are now expandable and you can see complete lists of mutual follows and people you are both followed by for any given user, when you click “more.”
Even though they have experimented with the feature before, the change is a permanent step towards developing a more useful Twitter social graph. Says Twitter’s Carolyn Penner, “By exposing accounts that you and another user have in common, you will now know how those accounts are connected to other accounts you already follow. As a result, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions about which accounts to follow.” → Read More
KennstDuEinnen.de, which literally translates to “Do you know somebody”, has raised €6.6 million in a series B round from an undisclosed group of American investors.
The German startup operates in the crowded ‘local’ space but unlike Yelp, Qype and other yellow pages-type sites, KennstDuEinen targets businesses directly rather than via a more direct consumer offering. It aggregates multiple channels that help drive customers to a local business, including reviews and SEO relevant features, as well as analytics for local businesses that tracks clicks, click-to-calls and emails sent. This puts KennstDuEinen more up against startups like Reachlocal or Yodle. → Read More
Yesterday brought bad news for Elevation with a report that superstar partner Marc Bodnick was leaving the firm. The story seems to have gotten a lot more interesting today. We’re hearing reports that Bodnick isn’t simply heading for a new sexier venture firm– he’s heading to Quora to become the company’s CFO. This certainly adds some credence to those who believe Quora is more than just the next generation of Yahoo Answers. It’s no secret that Bodnick has been deeply impressed by the company and spending a good deal of time on the site.
As this story has unfolded this morning, there’s been some debate over exactly what title Bodnick will have, and we’ve continued to update this story based on what sources close to the players are telling us. His background is in finance, so he’ll no doubt help out with CFO-duties, but it’s not clear why Quora needs such a polished full-time CFO at this point in its development. He will likely wind up serving as the requisite “grown up” more than anything else, helping Quora scale, build a real business and giving the company a polished spokesperson. It’s a role Bodnick would be familiar with– after all his sister-in-law is Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Zuckerberg’s no. 2 at Facebook. → Read More
Starbucks, the coffee giant, has just launched an electronic gift card program called Starbucks Card eGifts. There’s two primary ways to top-up your (or your friends’) gift cards. The first is simplest, and that’s by going to the Starbucks Web site and telling it which e-mail address to send the funds to. Nothing too complicated there, and you can specify whether to send a predetermined amount ($5, $10, $15, or $20), or you can send however much you like. And what kind of retail program would be relevant in 2011 without Facebook integration? → Read More
Get thee to the T-Moblery. The Samsung Galaxy Tab now costs $249 after a $50 rebate. Rumors of this price drop came yesterday but the tablet is available now online and in stores. Considering this is my favorite Android tablet, it’s worth a second look if you’re in the market. → Read More
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Skype’s IPO is being pushed back to the second half of 2011. Last August, Skype filed for an IPO registration statement with the SEC, with the maximum proposed offering amount listed as $100 million (that is a placeholder amount.) It was thought that the IPO would take place early this year, but apparently the company’s newly appointed CEO Tony Bates is looking for more time to get Skype “in better shape.”
From the Wall Street Journal report: “Tony needs to get his feet underneath him and understand the business and the voice of the company,” another person familiar with the matter said. “The intention is to go when Tony is ready and when the macroeconomic climate allows the company to go.” The additional time may help Mr. Bates to get Skype in better shape and increase its value ahead of an offering. But there is also the risk the IPO market weakens, hurting Skype’s chance to go public or depressing the value of the company. → Read More
Wowza. After the news that LG was pushing Optimus Ones off the shelf at a rate of around a million handsets per month, I sort of just assumed they were having a good quarter, financially. Not so much, it turns out. In fact, Q4 was pretty much their worst quarter in recent history. → Read More
Texas Instruments will be adding Wi-Fi, via a new adapter, to its TI-Nspire CX Navigator graphing calculator. Wi-Fi! Is there a Cydia-like repository for TI applications? → Read More
Everyone shares the same frustration with USB: There’s a right way and wrong way to plug it in. That’s it. Besides that little design flaw, USB flash drives still feel like the future in your hand. Plug it in and *BAM*, instant access to gigabytes of data. But wait, friend! There’s a solution! → Read More
Content farm Demand Media’s stock officially debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “DMD” after its IPO, in which it raised $151.3 million and was valued at just under $1.5 billion.
And on its first day as a public company, Demand Media’s stock is performing well. The stock is up 36 percent from an initial pricing of $17 to $23. → Read More
In October, Amazon announced its “Kindle Singles,” product, which introduced short stories and digital pamphlets to the e-book reader’s store. In the company’s words, Kindle Singles are “twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book” and generally 5,000 to 30,000 words (roughly 30 to 90 pages). Today, Amazon is debuting Kindle Singes, its collection of short works.
Kindle Singles are available to both Kindle device and app users, and priced between $0.99 and $4.99. Amazon says the first set of published Singles include original reporting, essays, memoirs and fiction. While the company says that “the response to our announcement of Singles has been great,” it’s unclear how many Singles have been added to the Kindle bookstore. → Read More
We’re one step closer to the Robocalypse: a team of researchers at German Aerospace Center (DLR) has developed a robot arm that can absorb violent shocks like a champion. Hitting it with a bat (66G impact) or trying to damage the finger tips with a hammer, for example? No problem. → Read More
So you’re like on the Internet and you get an email from a company called Gresso and you’re all like “Oh wow another iPhone case, dumb dumb dumb” and you’re about to stand up and go get another oatmeal cookie and you notice WTF right? WTF? Rhinestones made of pressed gold what wizardry is this where are we, Hyrule? Is this Lazy Town? Where is Little John doing a mash-up with a girl? And how much are these things? $1,000? I will take two, please! Also, could I please have a completely indecipherable press release detailing all the insane aspects of this case including the “Unique crystal Gold Crystal Glutinous of 18K” and the “washer acc iPhone.” And the Internet is all like “Your wish is my command, my master!” and bang, there’s the press release: → Read More
Intel Labs is opening up its deep pockets once again today, announcing a $100 million cash investment in U.S. university research over the next 5 years. The company plans to develop and open several branded “Intel Science and Technology Centers” at a number of universities for sponsored research and innovation throughout 2011.
The first Center will be built at Stanford University and will focus on creating innovations around cloud-computing, says Intel. Researchers at Stanford will collaborate with a community of researchers from seven other universities and Intel’s Core processor with combined visual and 3-D graphics will “be a key R&D platform” for researchers. Other focus areas of Intel Research Centers will include visual computing, mobility, security and embedded solutions. → Read More
According to Macotakara, the problem was in paint application, resulting in discoloration and general malaise. → Read More
How big a business are mobile apps? In a new report, market research firm Gartner forecasts that global mobile app store revenues will triple from $5.2 billion last year to $15 billion in 2011, and keep growing to an astounding $58 billion by 2014. As with any forecast of a hypergrowth market, you can be sure this one will change in six months, and the further out you go the more guesswork involved. (Remember, less than a year ago nobody was even able to predict how many iPads would be sold this year). But here is one prediction you can count on: you will be hearing these numbers thrown around a lot all year long until a better forecast comes along.
Gartner breaks down the forecast into advertising revenues and paid downloads (including in-app purchases), as you can see from the chart above. Paid downloads and other direct purchases make up the majority of the expected revenues, but mobile advertising is expected to grow nicely over time into a multi-billion dollar market. → Read More
If you aren’t familiar with the movement in the La Cle du Temps, let me explain it. It starts with a tourbillon based movement, where the tourbillon juts out of the bottom side of the watch. This is called a vertically mounted tourbillon. You can see it in the picture looking like some space age propeller. The watch dial, to tell the time, is on the upper right of the dial. The lower left of the dial is a power reserve indicator (looks like 5 days worth in the manually wound movement), and above it is the selector for speeding up for slowing down the time. This is where it gets interesting, and Hublot has clearly changed the format of the dial a bit from the previous watch. Using a crown on the left of the watch you can alter the time to run fast or run slow. A fun, but gimmicky way of “controlling time.” The neat part is that the movement always retains knowledge of the correct time – so you can always switch it back to “normal” mode and the time isn’t all screwed up. → Read More
I am not really sure if beer lovers really need this kind of gadget, but Takara Tomy is ready to sell it (in Japan only – at least initially). The company has showcased the so-called “Beer Hour” in Tokyo today, a small device that’s supposed to make it easier to pour beer from cans into glasses. → Read More
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