HeyWire, a service developed by MediaFriends that offers a free SMS service is debuting its Facebook App that will allow Facebook users to send both texts and Tweets via SMS (from a real phone number) from within Facebook.
Via the new HeyWire Facebook App, Facebook users can text worldwide without any per messaging fees and Tweet via SMS from within Facebook. Here’s how it works. Similar to other free texting apps, HeyWire users are given a real phone number to send and receive unlimited texts with friends and family worldwide. → Read More
This year’s European startup conference GeeknRolla has become a platform for news, as startups launched and speakers broke news direct from the stage.
Duedil, the business reputation startup, secured first prize in the startup competition, and an on-the-day announcement from DFJ Esprit that it would award the winner a £50,000 no strings investment in the form of a convertible note. This would convert into its next funding round at the price of the next round. That kind of announcement is more common in Silicon Valley, so to have the deal announced literally within a couple of hours of Duedil’s pitch on stage was real news for a European event. Let’s hope we see more of that kind of fast action in the rest of the year. They also won a crack at a year’s worth of Windows Azure hosting, £5,000 in free legal advice form Orrick and free premium job advertisements for a year on CoderStack (normally £120 per ad per month). Not a bad result for a 3 minute pitch. → Read More
Google is one of 32 companies to recently join the NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association that has been advancing the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology since its founding in 2004.
Google is joining the organization as a Principal member, while CSR and Intel have also raised their membership status to that level (they were formerly Associate Members). The full NFC Forum member list is available here. → Read More
IAC has made a business out of developing or acquiring mobile applications based on its popular properties. In fact, IAC’s mobile apps, which include apps for Match.com, CityGrid, UrbanSpoon, and Dictionary.com, have seen over 40 million downloads as of end of the year 2010. Today, we’ve learned exclusively that IAC is furthering its mobile strategy by launching Hatch Labs, a technology sandbox devoted to incubating mobile startups and innovations.
Hatch Labs is the brainchild of Dinesh Moorjani, who was formerly the SVP of IAC Mobile. At IAC, Moorjani started the mobile group in 2007 and helped lead all product strategy for mobile. During his time, Moorjani helped doubled mobile revenue annually for IAC. He tells us that for the past five years IAC has been acquiring mobile technologies and apps, but this can be an expensive endeavor. Moorjani and the company wanted to help incubate more innovation within IAC, particularly in the mobile sector and thus Hatch Labs was born. → Read More
A mere day after Salesforce announced that it was acquiring social media monitoring company Radian6 for $326 million in cash and stock, rival Visible Technologies this morning announced that it has secured an extra $6 million in financing.
The round was led by the company’s previous backers, which include Investor Growth Capital, Centurion Holdings, Ignition Partners, In-Q-Tel and WPP. Visible Technologies has raised a total of $45 million in funding to date. → Read More
Social networking company myYearbook this morning announced it has acquired five new Android apps to support its mobile strategy and grow its team. In addition, the company acquired FlockEngine, which powers multiplayer games on Android phones.
The acquisitions include Toss It, Tic Tac Toe (both of which are among the top 30 most downloaded free Android games), Minesweeper, SpringDroid, and Line of 4. → Read More
Exclusive - Munich, Germany-based social games developer and publisher MegaZebra has secured ‘multiple millions of euros’ in its latest round of financing led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. Previous backer Kizoo Technology Ventures also participated, alongside private investor Markus Stolz.
Founded in 2008 and originally supporting a variety of social networks, MegaZebra in the course of last year shifted its focus squarely on developing and publishing games for the Facebook platform only. → Read More
Exclusive - Viber Media, the Israeli startup behind the Viber service, which lets iPhone users make free calls to each other, has released version 2.0 of its app in the App Store.
The company’s still gearing up for the launch of their Android application, but in the meantime the update to the iPhone app brings a couple of goodies, in particular the ability to text message other Viber users free of charge. → Read More
Video: French Robot REETI Can Show Emotions CrunchDeals: Super Mega Worm For Super Mega Free Cardboard Pinhole Hasselblad Is Short On Megapixels, Long On Cute Video: New Touchscreen Control Interface Flexes When Scrolled 5 Reasons To Buy A Nintendo 3DS… And 5 Reasons Not To → Read More
Although the Mars rovers have gone way, way beyond the call of duty (the original mission was for 90 days; Opportunity is still active after more than six years), the dream has to end sometime — and evidence is mounting that for Spirit, the first of the two rovers to touch down, may be down for the count. After a year of being trapped in sand, its last big hope was a big solar boost over this last month, but it seems that was insufficient to bring the poor little guy back to life, and NASA is moving on. It’s not impossible that it could be reinvigorated by a fresh breeze and some sun (like many of us), but things don’t look good. → Read More
I think we can all agree that while bass is an important part of most music, there is a limit past which it is pointless to amplify that part of the sound spectrum. This video is about going so far beyond that point that the sound starts being measured in gut punches rather than decibels. That poor phonebook never had a chance. → Read More
Eric over at Photography Bay captured this demo of Adobe’s in-development Photoshop app for iPad on video. It’s way more full-featured than the Photoshop Express already available — if file management was a little easier, this would go a long way towards making my iPad an actual full-powered blogging station.
There’s no release date yet, but I can’t wait. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear more. → Read More
So, there I was, sitting at TCHQ, discussing the recent Vanity Fair article about Jack Dorsey — and the ridiculous bluebird-on-the-shoulder picture that accompanied it.
Keen to track down the image itself, I typed Dorsey’s name into Google’s predictive image search box.
Here’s what came up… → Read More
One of the games for Kinect that I’m genuinely excited about is Child of Eden, from the geniuses behind the mesmerizing Rez and Lumines. The system seems just perfect for it, and the aesthetic is… well, just watch the trailer. → Read More
President Obama seems to understand the role that startups play and the contribution that skilled immigrants make to U.S. economic growth. He has talked a lot about the importance of science and engineering, and expressed fears that, unless we improve our game, China and India will out-innovate us. He even visited Silicon Valley recently to talk to its elite. And he has had his Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, make several trips here to the Valley.
I commend the President for putting a spotlight on entrepreneurship with his Startup America initiative; but I can’t help wondering whether this is just a giant press release. It needs more substance: a way for foreign-born entrepreneurs to start companies here and a leveling of the playing field for entrepreneurs wanting to solve government problems.
I debated this with Aneesh Chopra, at the Economist Innovation Summit in Berkeley, last week. → Read More
So you want your very own Hasselblad, but don’t want to spend the $40K? Well, this is right up your alley, though some assembly is required. → Read More
Almost exactly one year ago (their birthday is tomorrow), WePay launched its group payment platform to the public. The goal was simple: give people an easy way to divvy up bills, member dues, and other common transactions with an integrated payment system and easy reminders to nudge those fraternity members who haven’t paid their dues yet. The service is also handy for selling tickets and collecting donations.
In light of the occasion, WePay is starting to talk about some of its numbers (albeit vaguely). WePay CEO Bill Clerico says that in the last three months, the service’s engagement numbers have surged from around 5,000 users per week to 25,000 per week. These users aren’t just visiting the site — they’re actually taking substantive action, like sending bills. He attributes this growth to optimizations the site has recently made to its sharing flows on Twitter, Facebook and its emails. He also says that WePay has drawn a lot of new users from referrals. → Read More
Short version: A good-looking and fairly durable alternative to your usual black-nylon camera bag. Not an all-purpose bag, though — definitely for the photographer who loves waxed canvas, not the gadget guy or world traveler, despite its Indiana Jones looks. → Read More
BuzzFeed and Huffington Post co-founder Jonah Peretti talked at Web 2.0 Expo today about the much misunderstood subject of how to make something go viral (no it’s not all about cats and bacon). Peretti began the talk running through his various early experiments in virality and what they taught him about why content spreads.
As part of his theory as to why content that elicits a reaction from users has more of a penchant for going viral, Peretti contrasted Google and Facebook in terms of their approaches to information. → Read More
