TechCrunch TV celebrates its one year birthday today. Since we launched, we’ve had 10 million live and on demand video plays. We have more than 2,300 videos archived in our library. In addition to breaking news interviews and live special event coverage, we now produce 9 shows in San Francisco and New York.
Last year in late June, TechCrunch had just moved into its new San Francisco office. Studio lights were quickly installed in a former conference room that became the studio. A rather wobbly desk was built for the set and rehearsals were conducted. One week later, TechCrunch TV launched with a very Max Headroom looking set. → Read More
No, it isn’t a watch but it does tell the time – this is the exclusive debut of the Link Smart Phone with pictures and details. It started with the Meridiist luxury phone in 2008 and now comes the Link Smart Phone – the second major mobile phone from Tag Heuer. It will run Android and be tough as nails according to Tag Heuer. One major complaint many people have about super high-end phones (aside from the obvious complaints) is that they are no more, or less durable that normal phones. Drop many of them and bye-bye to telecom investment. → Read More
InboxQ, the browser extension that attempts to turn Twitter into Quora by letting big brands like @Gap search for user questions to engage with, is launching its web interface today for all those that are browser extension shy. Previously the service, which searches for Twitter users asking “real” questions and allows people and brands to answer them, was only available through a Firefox and Chrome plugin. → Read More
Alibaba-owned Vendio has acquired SingleFeed, a startup that helps online merchants to submit, manage, and optimize product listings on sites like Google Product Search, PriceGrabber and others. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
SingleFeed takes an online merchant’s products and delivers this data to comparison shopping engines. The virtue of SingleFeed’s service is that it helps merchants improve engagement, visits and transactions by being listed on more engines. As Vendio says, comparison shopping engines can drive between 15 and 40% of an online store’s monthly visits. → Read More
When you visit Craigslist, it’s almost as if you’re visiting the early 90s web. Blue links. That’s it. On one hand, you have to appreciate the simplicity (and speed). On the other, WTF? It’s 2011.
Many competitors have tried to disrupt Craigslist in the past, and failed — often miserably. But there’s reason to believe the space is ripe for disruption now thanks to one key ingredient: mobile. That’s exactly what EggCartel is aiming to do.
Their first product, EggDrop launches today on the iPhone and tomorrow on Android devices. Think of it as a way to put a version of Craigslist in your pocket, but one that’s much more visual. And even more focused on location. And most importantly, one that’s much easier to add items to. → Read More
For safety and insurance reasons, you’re required to warn participants about the dangers they may face. After all, it’s learning through science and not dying through science. That said, these nine Aperture Science surplus labels available from ThinkGeek for just $12.99 should satisfy the minimum safety requirements. Affixing said warnings are a non-issue since they’re printed on adhesive vinyl that’s water and UV safe. Stick them to your notebook, cubical wall, or, like I will, bathroom door to make sure people understand the danger ahead. → Read More
Another day, another carrier expanding their 4G network. This time around, it’s T-Mobile… which means calling it “4G” is technically a bit of a stretch, but hey, we’ve beat that horse enough at this point. The latest regions to show up on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ coverage map: Chico, Calif.; Redding, Calif.; Barnstable, Mass.; Vineland, N.J.; Lancaster, Penn.; Ogden, Utah, and Winchester, Va. If nothing else, T-Mobile customers at Chico State should be glad that they can totally send each other regrettable text messages, like, way faster now. → Read More
Last night, you may have heard talk of a mysterious black bar appearing on the top of Google.com. Or you may have even seen it yourself. No, you weren’t hallucinating. It was a sign of something about to show itself. Something big. Google+.
What is Google+? It’s the super top-secret social project that Google has been working on for the past year. You know, the one being led by General Patton (Vic Gundotra) and General MacArthur (Bradley Horowitz). Yes, the one Google has tried to downplay as much as humanly possible — even as we got leak after leak after leak of what they were working on. Yes, the one they weren’t going to make a big deal about with pomp and circumstance. It’s real. And it’s here.
Sort of.
You see, the truth is that Google really is trying not to make a huge deal out of Google+. That’s not because they don’t have high hopes for it. Or because they don’t think it’s any good. Instead, it’s because what they’re comfortable showing off right now is just step one of a much bigger picture. When I sat down with Gundotra and Horowitz last week, they made this point very clear. In their minds, Google+ is more than a social product, or even a social strategy, it’s an extension of Google itself. Hence, Google+. → Read More
As we wrote recently, many of the more interesting startups that have emerged over the past year are improving our lives in the real world better by using data, location and curation as their competitive weapons. Startups like Uber and Airbnb are bringing industries online or mobile, creating a more seamless experience for consumers. A Chicago-based startup called Apparel Media Group (AMG) is aiming to disrupt the custom apparel printing industry by connecting brands and consumers.
Imagine a community that needs athletic uniforms or t-shirts for a kids soccer team and a brand like Honda that wants to target soccer moms with their latest vehicle. AMG helps the team purchase Honda-branded apparel at a discount price and allows Honda to create a deeper connection with their target audience. Historically, local businesses have sponsored community or college teams, but Apparel Media gives national brands a way to target these specific communities at schools, colleges and in communities. → Read More
Mozilla wants your help in keeping the web innovative and open.
Today, the organization is launching a new program designed to help spur projects that focus on open web technologies. The initiative is called Web FWD (pronounced Web Forward), and invites teams to spend four weeks working in Mozilla offices, where they’ll learn from top experts in web technologies and have access to Mozilla resources. Applications are now being accepted, and the first group of teams will begin working from Mozilla offices in August.
Pascal Finette, who heads Mozilla Labs, says that the project was inspired by the success of programs like Y Combinator — though there are plenty of differences. Unlike YC, which takes a modest equity stake in participating companies, Mozilla’s not out to make money. In fact, all code written during the four-week program must be open sourced (teams can later fork their code and continue to build their project into a business if they’d like — Mozilla will even make the VC introductions). Mozilla will also consider giving promising products that stick with the open-source model additional funding and resources. → Read More
Seattle startup Pressplane just inked a new $3.5 million round, led by Madrona Ventures. Rob Glaser, founder of RealNetworks and now a partner at Accel, also invested personally and is joining board. Second Avenue Partners and chairman Mika Salmi (formerly of MTV Networks and Atom Entertainment) also participated.
The money will go into further development of Zapd, a mobile publishing platform that lets people create good-looking, customized Websites directly from their iPhones. (You can see it in action on this episode of Fly or Die). Since its launch in March, Zapd has been downloaded 320,000 times with very little marketing. → Read More
Apple’s ninja-like lawyers quickly “took care of” the last figurine made in Steve’s likeness. Maybe this one will fare a bit different. At least with a reported $160 price tag, this 1/6 model will likely be a more limited run and might run under Apple’s radar. Or not thanks to the multiple miniature Apple products that probably infringe on several copyrights. No word on where you’ll be able to buy mini Steve and his New Balance 992 sneakers, but ToyHaven is stating that it will carry a $160 price tag — if it makes it to product before the legal bad boys have their way. [via Technabob] → Read More
Zynga according to CNBC reporter Kate Kelly, Zynga will file its S-1 for an IPO with the SEC as early as tomorrow with a valuation between $15 billion and $20 billion.
Kelly says that Zynga will raise between $1.5 and $2 billion in its offering. The company, says CNBC, has selected Morgan Stanley as the main underwriter of the IPO, with Goldman Sachs and Bank of America also listed as additional underwriters. → Read More
Tokyo-based Japan Trend Shop, an online store selling unique gadgets and lifestyle products from Nippon, started listing something super-cute today: Hello Kitty-themed protective cases (the site is completely in English) for use with the iPhone 4. → Read More
Nokia is all about the ladies. With Symbian, we have Anna and Belle iterations, with more girly names to follow in alphabetical order. And of course, who could forget that absolutely ridiculous female-targeted N8 commercial? It’s certainly burned into the corners of my memory, unfortunately. Today we came across a leaked roadmap for upcoming Symbian handsets, and we were surprised to see that Nokia has taken the lady-love a step further, giving girly names (at least for now) to four different upcoming Symbian phones. → Read More
ThingWorx, which provides a platform for the development of apps connecting people, systems and the physical world, this morning announced that it has acquired privately held, Rochester, NY-based Palantiri Systems, maker of the AlwaysOn software platform.
The combination of both companies, ThingWorx posits, will result in a single company that it says will “represent the catalyst for the next stage of the ‘connected device’ revolution”. → Read More
Founded in 1999, Augme Technologies is an under-the-radar company that, over the last few years, has quietly built a mobile marketing technology platform that may see it become a big player in the mobile technology and marketing boom. The platform, called Ad Life, allows marketers, brands, and agencies to plan, create, test, deploy, and track mobile marketing programs — with the most noteworthy feature of Augme’s patented technology being the fact that it is able to reach targeted groups while remaining device-agnostic. → Read More
The popular UberSocial Twitter client for BlackBerry (formerly known as UberTwitter) just got an update with a bunch of new features and bug fixes.
Notably, its developer UberMedia is doubling down on its BlackBerry app around the same time one of its rivals, Seesmic, is abandoning the BlackBerry platform.
One of the new features in UberSocial for Blackberry 1.2 is called “Inner Circle”, which basically lets you group together the most important people you follow in an exclusive timeline, alongside the traditional timeline. → Read More
