Netflix is interesting because it is the first service to follow the disruptive arc of the iPad. Every time the iPad is analyzed, the projections are anywhere from just plain wrong to what amounts to a niche. Doesn’t run applications… now there’s an AppStore. Doesn’t run Flash… now there’s a Flash converter app. Apps don’t support a magazine subscription model… Tuesday they will. Won’t be accepted by IT… 80% penetration. Will be overwhelmed by Android tablets… Apple will Verizon them with iPad 2.
What is reminiscent of iPadnomics is the speed with which the disruption is underestimated, the naiveté with which the backlash is orchestrated, and the resultant vaulting of the service into a near-incumbent position before the deposed incumbents can retrench from the initial mistaken counterattack. Netflix is already at the stage where iTunes was when the music cartel tried to cap it. While Amazon may be a cheaper service without so-called DRM, there’s no device comparable to Apple TV at the end of the value chain. → Read More
Word on the street is that cloud-based game save management will be coming to the PS3 beginning with firmware 3.60. Hate the idea of the cloud managing your saves? Don’t worry, for it looks like the feature will only be available to PlayStation Plus subscribers. Outrage! → Read More
‘The Social Network’ star Jesse Eisenberg hosted “Saturday Night Live” tonight and opened the show talking about the movie’s impressive eight Oscar nominations. The monologue then switched to video of actual Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg watching his two “Berg” doppelgangers backstage, ”Why can’t I go in there, I’m the real Mark Zuckerberg? → Read More
Ever since the iPad came out, print media companies have been feeling their way in this new medium, but so far they’ve just been stumbling over themselves.
They are latching onto the iPad as a new walled garden where people will somehow magically pay for articles they can get for free in their browsers. But if they want people to pay, the experience has to be better than on the Web, and usually it’s not.
This sorry state of affairs is true for both magazines and newspapers. The New York Times iPad app, for instance, is gorgeous but crippled. All the links are stripped out of the articles, even from the blogs. Meanwhile, most iPad magazines are little more than PDFs of the print issues with some photo slideshows and videos thrown in. They end up being huge files—I recently downloaded a single issue that was 350 MB, some issues of Wired are 500 MB—with the same stale articles as in the print version. Replicating a dead-tree publishing model on a touchscreen is a recipe for obsolescence. → Read More
‘The Social Network’ star Jesse Eisenberg hosted “Saturday Night Live” tonight and opened the show talking about the movie’s impressive eight Oscar nominations. The monologue then switched to video of actual Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg watching his two “Berg” doppelgangers backstage, ”Why can’t I go in there, I’m the real Mark Zuckerberg? → Read More
This week’s episode of OMG/JK, the show I do on TechCrunch TV alongside Jason Kincaid, is all Google all the time. So just to even things out a bit, we kick things off by showing off my awesome new TikTok iPod nano wristwatch. For those who don’t remember, this is the result of the most successful Kickstarter project ever.
We then dive into the Google stuff including Eric Schmidt being replaced by Larry Page as CEO, Google’s index changes, Google Voice number porting, and the upcoming Android Honeycomb event. Watch it above. → Read More
Late last night the 43 startups in the most recent Y Combinator class got quite a surprise. Start Fund, a new fund created by DST’s Yuri Milner as an individual and SV Angel, offered each of the companies a $150,000 investment in the form of a convertible note with no cap and no discount.
Most of these companies are still in stealth mode, and Start Fund hasn’t seen them. They made the offer based on the Y Combinator stamp of approval.
The startups are jumping on board. 36 of the 43 startups in the class had signed the paperwork to take the loan before the event was even over last night, says David Lee, a managing partner at SV Angel who’s also managing the Start Fund. “As of 3 pm today we’ve received 39 confirmed signature pages, and we believe the rest are awaiting approval from their attorneys.” → Read More
You may recall that back in the summer of 2009, there was a lot of hubbub over a Google 20 percent project with a near impossible name: Pubsubhubbub. Creators Brad Fitzpatrick and Brett Slatkin actually unveiled it at our Realtime Stream CrunchUp back then. And it garnered a lot of buzz for a good reason: it aimed to speed up traditionally slow feeds of information to realtime. Well, now the two are back at it again (with a few other contributors) with a new project: Camlistore.
First of all, aside from the fact that I keep typing “Camilstore”, this name is a significant improvement over the last project. It’s an acronym for “Content-Addressable Multi-Layer Indexed Storage”. But more importantly, the project once again looks to be a very interesting one. Though the team is quick to note on its homepage that it’s “not ready for users”, the site has quite a bit of information about the general hopes for the project and how they imagine it working. → Read More
Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss have made a co-investment in Facebook on the secondary market. In this video clip posted this week, Rose announces that he and Ferris recently invested in Facebook “before the craziness.” We’ve embedded the video below; Rose talks about the investment just after the 34 minute mark.
We confirmed with Rose that he and Ferriss actually bought shares on secondary market SecondMarket at a $45 billion valuation. We’re told the deal was in the seven figures. The ‘craziness’ Rose is referring to is Facebook’s recent $1.5 billion funding round from Goldman Sachs and DST at a $50 billion valuation, and the possibility of an IPO for the network by April 2012. → Read More
Next time someone gives you the “You talking to me?” speech, you might be able to respond with a confident, “yeah.” This massive shell shooter, dubbed “The Raging Judge,” offers a very pragmatic approach to settling disputes — even .57 Magnum dualers will shake in their boots. The Judge creator, the Brazilian armsmaker Taurus, recently revealed the 28 gauge firearm. → Read More
Editor’s note: Guest author Chris Yeh is an independent angel investor and VP of Marketing for PBworks, one of his investments. He has been involved with Internet startups since 1995. His Twitter handle is @chrisyeh.
The big news this morning is Yuri Milner’s announcement that he and Ron Conway will be investing $150,000 in *every* Y Combinator startup on a no-discount, no-cap convertible loan. → Read More
Here we see Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric trying to explain the Internet in 1994. Did we ever really dress like that? → Read More
Can’t stand superficial detail? Overwhelmed by samsara? Why not strip out false detail and turn your world into the wall of Plato’s cave, flickering shadows portraying the world as it really is: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. → Read More
With the eyes of the world on Egypt, the Gillmor Gang convened to discuss the impact of social media on what appears to a revolution without borders. Doc Searls, Seth Goldstein, John Taschek, and Kevin Marks put aside vendor sports and Silicon Valley to focus on a brave new world and its apparent off switch. What we came up with was the strong feeling that, whatever the tumult of the day, the genie is out of the bottle and will soon return.
What started as what we were having for lunch has emerged as a worldwide message bus, whether by tweet or friend to friend, search, or gesture. And as the media tries to capture the speed of realtime, the incredible scope and power of the global network has never seemed more fragile and yet sturdy in its robust elastcity. The cloud has found its moment to change and augment history. → Read More
Audi-Designed Carbon Skis: Want So Bad Have Five Fingers Gone Too Far? Check Out This Year’s Casual Lineup Star Trek Potato Heads To Boldly Go Where No Potato Head Has Gone Before (sorry, had to) Smile-Scan: Omron Updates Its Smile-O-Meter Ferrari F150: The First Formula One Car Of The Season Inches Toward Green → Read More
Meetup, a long time go-to place to create local online groups, has undergone a major re-launch in the past day. However, it may have missed a trick: not consulting the meetup organizers who pay through the nose for the service. There now appears to be something of a revolt going on amongst some organisers, who are vociferously protesting about the changes.
The reaction of annoyed organisers and members has turned into two, count-em, Twitter hashtags: #newmeetup and #meetuporganizersunite.
Alternatives to Meetup like BigTent are being touted, as is GroupSpaces – a startup which last year raised $1.3 million from the likes of Index Ventures and Angels like Dave McClure and Chris Sacca. It is is already gunning for “FormerMeetupOrganizers” with its own group and a blog post on the subject. → Read More
Earlier tonight, Mike posted a bombshell that must have made super angels shudder. Not content with the grenade he threw into the late-stage investing world with aggressive investments in Facebook, Groupon and Zynga, tonight Yuri Milner announced a new partnership with Ron Conway that offers similar you’d-be-crazy-not-to-take-this-deal terms for every Y Combinator company.
But you know who might be even more bummed by the news than the super angels? Sequoia Capital. The top Valley firm led Y Combinator’s last funding, less than one year ago. At $8.5 million, this was a big step up for Y Combinator, dramatically allowing it to expand how many startups it could let into its incubator. And it should have been a big advantage for Sequoia too: A way to see a crop of new deals early in an increasingly competitive investing landscape, where most VCs are being shut out of early rounds by super angels. It seems Milner stole the opportunity right out from under Sequoia. → Read More
College students, how would you like to work at Apple part time? Get full benefits and something more than $10 an hour? Beats working in the cafeteria right? Well, Apple is beginning to hire college students to answer AppleCare phone calls. And it might end up changing the customer service game entirely.
Find out how after the break. → Read More
