TweetDeck’s new iPhone app came out a couple days ago. It is completely redesigned from the ground up and looks more like it’s Android cousin than the first TweetDeck for iPhone. Instead of cramming as much as possible into an iPhone screen, TweetDeck stripped everything out but the essentials. The result is a spare mobile stream reader that packs a lot of punch. We take a look at the new TweetDeck for IPhone in this episode of Fly or Die, along with Soundtracking, and Zapd. As usual, the CEO behind one of these products appears as a surprise guest during the show.
With Twitter rumored to be negotiating a $50 million acquisition of TweetDeck to keep it out of the hands of Bill Gross’ UberMedia, it is not clear whether this brand new product will survive such a deal. After all, Twitter has its own iPhone client, among others. It doesn’t need two. → Read More
If you’re on an Android device, you may know that there are already plenty of ways to conduct video and voice calls using various third party applications (Qik, Fring, etc.). But that functionality has never been included with stock builds of Android (at least, not for phones), the way Apple’s FaceTime has been integrated into iOS for the last year. Today, that’s starting to change.
Google is currently rolling out an update to Nexus S devices that adds voice and video chat to Google Talk, which is included as part of the core set of Google applications that come pre-installed on many Android devices. The feature will work on both Wi-Fi and 3G/4G wireless networks, and allows calls between phones, tablets, and any computer with Gmail and Google Talk enabled.
The update is gradually rolling out over the air (a process that usually takes a couple weeks), and it also includes numerous bug fixes. The Nexus One will be getting an update as well, but it won’t include the video chat support (it doesn’t have a front-facing camera, though it would have been nice to have a voice-only feature for VoIP calls). → Read More
Just about a year ago, when Apple passed Microsoft in market cap, the Redmond loyalists were out in full force: that means nothing — look at the revenues! When Apple passed Microsoft in revenues last October, it was: who cares — look at the profits! We were looking, and we projected that this quarter just ended would be the one in which Apple passed Microsoft in that regard too.
Sure enough, they have. Easily.
Microsoft has just announced their Q3 2011 results. The numbers appear to be good, beating analysts’ expectations. But with net income now at $5.23 billion, Microsoft now comes in well behind Apple, which had a net income of $5.99 billion last quarter. → Read More
Accel Partners has invested $35 million in the crowdsource design service 99designs– a monster of a series A. Of course, 99designs is not your average early-stage startup. Born in Melbourne, Australia out of an older company called sitepoint.com, 99designs is bootstrapped, profitable and growing revenues at a rate of about 120% a year.
A few strategic angel investors also participated including Michael Dearing, Stewart Butterfield, Dave Goldberg and Anthony Casalena. Accel’s Andrew Braccia and Ryan Sweeney will join the board along with Dearing.
The growth helps explain why Braccia has been courting this deal since 2009. And he wasn’t alone. 99designs CEO Patrick Llewellyn says several VCs have been pinging the company, and until now, they’ve all been turned away. They all seem to find out about the company the same way: One of their portfolio companies uses the service to get a good, cheap logo. → Read More
Spotify continues to negotiate with Facebook over its long promised U.S. launch. But that isn’t the only thing the music streaming service has been up to. They’ve negotiated a number of deals with major movie studios to offer users streaming movies as well as music, a source in the industry tells us.
Earlier this week we reported that YouTube plans a similar service (something we first wrote about last year). As with Google/YouTube, we’re not sure when Spotify will launch the new service. But our best information suggests this Fall.
And these aren’t your standard Netflix/Amazon/iTunes type movie deals, either, we’ve heard. Spotify is aiming to offer users much earlier access to movies. Similar to the release dates that hotel’s get for premium in-room movies. They’re expensive, but users can often see them just a couple of weeks after they’ve been in theaters. → Read More
HTC is looking for an experienced professional to lead the company into the automotive technology game. Apple established itself long ago in the automotive audio field with smart iPod/iPhone integration and this job posting seems to say the smartphone company is looking to follow suit, which will hopefully lead to smoother roads for Android and Windows Mobile users. → Read More
How do you know times are booming in the tech sector? Techmeme just became a job board.
To be clear, it will continue to be the go-to source for technology news as it has been for the past several years — but there’s now a new area in the right-hand column devoted to “Who’s hiring in tech”.
Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera writes about the new addition here, noting that “billboards suck” and taking a shot at our parent company, AOL, which has become addicted to putting up billboard touting jobs all over the Bay Area. Obviously, Rivera hopes this will become a new chunk of revenue for his site. → Read More
Om Malik got a tip from an unidentified source who told him that Apple purchased the domain name icloud.com from a Swedish company called Xcerion (which recently renamed its iCloud service to CloudMe) for about $4.5 million. This is most certainly a possibility.
Last week, we also received a tip that Apple purchased iCloud.com. I immediately followed up with Xcerion and asked the company whether they changed their name because Apple had purchased the domain name / trademark from them and why they changed their service’s name to CloudMe if that weren’t the case. → Read More
Visible Measures, a third-party online media measurement solution for advertisers and publishers, has secured $7.7 million in an open-ended financing round, according to an SEC filing. We’ve learned that the round was led by DAG Ventures, with participation from Northgate Capital and General Catalyst Partners. The newest round brings the company’s total funding to $37 million. → Read More
There is a fairly egregious worm going around now that masquerades as a YouTube link for a “banned” Lady Gaga video. When you click on the bit.ly link it sends you to a fake YouTube page and then asks for permission to access your Twitter account. This results in another infected tweet being sent out on your Twoot stream, thereby continuing the long, sad cycle. → Read More
Social gaming company CrowdStar has hired former Glu and Transpera executive, Alex Galvagni, as the Head of Studios. In his role, Galvagni will be taking on a COO-like position, heading up scaling the company in operations, games, and hiring.
Prior to working at CrowdStar, Galvagni was the President and COO of mobile video advertising company Transpera, which was acquired by Tremor Media in February. Previously, Galvagni was the Senior Vice President of Global product development for Glu Mobile, where he worked for eight years. During his time with Glu, he built, scaled and led the technology and product development of the company. Galvagni also served as an Architect at BEA Systems where he planned the extension of the WebLogic platform to mobile computing. → Read More
Appstores.com, formerly Appbistro, is finally live today with the release of its AppShowcase product. AppShowcase lets platforms like Eventbrite and SimpleGeo automate the process of showcasing (I know right!) apps that are built with their APIs.
“AppStores.com is the most exciting new service for platform companies because it delivers an effective solution that we don’t have to design or develop — allowing us to focus on our platform and core product,” explained Eventbrite’s Mitch Colleran on why Eventbrite decided to use the AppStores platform to highlight its developer ecosystem. You can find the Eventbrite AppStore here. → Read More
If you’re an app developer in the mobile world, promo codes (that is, one-time use codes redeemable for a free copy of your app) are amongst the most important tools you can have in your marketing handbag. Want an app review site to give your app a spin? They’ll probably want a promo code. Want to give away 50 copies of your app on Facebook to kickstart word-of-mouth? Unless you’re going to eat the cost of all 50 installs, you’ll need 50 promo codes. Alas, most mobile platforms to date haven’t bothered to give developers any sort of promo code system. Android Market? Nope. WP7 Marketplace? Nuh uh. The webOS App Catalog? Nada — until today. webOS’ new promo code system has one glaring fault, though… → Read More
Brand Thunder, the site that allows you to skin your browser, is rolling out a slick new theme creation utility called BT:Engage, which allows anyone to easily build and share interactive browser themes. The entire process is web-based with real-time previews of themes as you build them. It’s a little rough around the edges right now, but the long-term plan is to have a sophisticated suite of tools to create themes that are easy to distribute with “an elegant download page”, and a management tool for monitoring downloads and active users as well as managing live themes and promotions. → Read More
Power up your desk with this USB Mushroom Lamp from ThinkGeek. It’s only $10 bucks, which is a small price to pay for the eternal satisfaction of a functional conversation piece. The light comes by way two super bright white LEDs powered by either USB or AA batteries. I’m of the belief that while the lure of an extra life is tempting, the red mushroom’s supersize ability is a better investment — or just spend $20 on both. [ThinkGeek via Technabob] → Read More
Anytime there’s a startup that has been quietly catching fire, you can always find a trail of investors warming themselves by the flames. Take LikeALittle, for example. Though they’ve kept it quiet, we’ve now confirmed with multiple sources that they raised $1 million from Andreessen Horowitz and others at some point earlier this year.
And it makes sense. LikeALittle first popped on our radar back in December of last year while we were looking into a Hacker News thread claiming that one of the Y Combinator Winter ’11 startups had done 20 million pageviews in six weeks — and was growing by over 1 million pageviews a day. That startup, of course, was Likealittle, a social network for flirting started by former Googlers and Microsofties, Evan Reas, Prasanna Sankaranarayanan and Shubham Mittal. → Read More
This odd keyboard features a prominent iPhone dock on the right side in place of a numeric keypad. It has a set of special iPhone-specific hotkeys that allow you to enter data into the iPhone and control music playback and you can use the keyboard on a Mac or PC as well as use it to type directly onto your iPhone. Finally, this weird chimera lets you use the iPhone’s screen as a touchpad for the PC. Weird, wild stuff. The keyboard will cost $99 and will be available May 24. I’m not sure how they’ll pull off a lot of this – looks like a lot of apps on the iPhone itself – but it’s a fascinating concept. → Read More
When we first looked at Hitpost back in January, it was still just a concept — people taking pictures of sporting events and talking about them as they watch them on TV. Shortly thereafter, the iPhone and Android apps hit and it was off to the races. Today it’s time for the 2.0 launch which brings a couple new big features: tweets and news. The “meat and potatoes” as Hitpost founder Aaron Krane puts it.
When you load up Hitpost 2.0, you’ll now see scores, news, and athlete tweets to go along with the main event: photos. The UI of the app has also been completely reworked. Notably, there is now a “My Teams” view to get an overview of all the aforementioned information about the teams you follow. And full Facebook sharing integration has been added. → Read More
