Six days ago, Instagram pushed version 2.0 live in the App Store. A big time upgrade with a focus on the camera, co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom expected signups to pick up some significant steam. But it was more like they caught fire.
Over the weekend, Instagram was seeing a signup rate of over one new user a second — roughly 75 per minute, Systrom says. This pushed them past the 10 million user milestone. → Read More
“It’s an honor to serve”, America’s Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, told me when I caught up with him at AT&T’s gleaming new Foundry innovation center in Palo Alto last week. Appointed by President Obama as American’s first CTO in 2009, Chopra laid out for me three priorities for driving technological innovation in America. The first is building what he calls “smart infrastructure” for the digital age. The second is establishing clear “rules of road” for critical issues like security and intellectual property protection in an increasingly Internet centric economy. And the third is leaping over what he calls “the productivity gap” to create digital jobs in the future. → Read More
Can’t get enough of that Facebook Timeline? Want to copy it wholesale in your own Wordpress blog? Do you want to support an “Italian boy” named Julian? I bet you do.
We just got this excellent tip from Julian describing the process by which he created this very own theme, the aptly-named “Timeline-wp.” He wants no beef with Facebook and, while I find the adoption of an established megacompany’s brand and image slightly unbecoming and/or dangerous even for a private blog (and a bit shortsighted as Facebook will probably tear this design up by the time the next f8 rolls around), you can download and install the theme today at no cost to you. → Read More
Head down into the bunkers and lock the door, friends — there be flamewars a comin’.
Nielsen released a new mobile research report this morning, with at least one big landmark stat within: over the past 3 months, Android has pulled in over twice as many new smartphone buyers as the iPhone. → Read More
Fan “relationship management” service FanBridge is launching a new feature today, called the “Social Digest,” which gives influencers and brands a way to stay in touch with their fans and followers. The Social Digest automatically curates the most popular social content in an email digest distributed to fans on a weekly basis.
FanBridge, which has raised funding from SoftTech VC, Lowercase Capital, 500 Startups, First Round Capital, Founder Collective, Grape Arbor VC, and Alex Zubillaga; helps bands, artists, sports teams, and even small businesses and brands manage their fan base through opt-in emails and sophisticated analytics. It manages more than 120 million fans via email alone. → Read More
How do you sell the Facebook phone in a Facebook-free environment? Luckily for HTC, China isn’t short on homegrown social networks, one of the largest being the instant messaging service QQ.
So as the HTC Status (once known as the ChaCha) migrates toward China, where our favorite social network has been banned, Facebook will be left behind to make room for a dedicated QQ button (pictured at left). → Read More
Doot doo doot doo doo doot! Hacker Retrobrad created a handheld console that displays Super Mario Brother in a very special way: each sprite is reduced to one pixel. The console, called Super Pixel Brothers, includes all 20 levels as well boss fights.
The game is played on an 8×8 mutli-colored LED board and to hit enemies you need to position your single-pixel Mario over their single-pixel heads.
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AdMob founder Omar Hamoui has made an investment in Gigwalk, a mobile app that allows users to get assigned basic “gigs” or jobs from companies via their location. The startup has raised a total of $1.7 million from Hamoui, Greylock, Jeff Clavier, Michael Dearing and the Founder Collective.
Gigwalk, which launched a few months ago, basically allows companies to tap into a mobile workforce for simple tasks. Users simply download the app, enter your PayPal information and get assigned entry-level “gigs” or jobs that may take just a few minutes at a time in a particular location. For example, TomTom uses Gigwalk’s workforce to snap pictures to verify certain navigation points, such as one-way streets, etc. These workers simply snap a picture, email them in and receive a few dollars for the easy task. → Read More
Good morning, and welcome to today’s edition of: “Apple and Samsung love to hate each other.”
Though it’s only been a short weekend since the latest update, the dueling electronics makers have again waged war in the Netherlands. Samsung countersued Apple in the Hague court last week, claiming that the iPad and iPhone violate certain 3G technology patents held by the South Korea-based company. The issue is that those Samsung-held patents fall under FRAND licensing terms, as they cover technology necessary for the industry as a whole, and must be licensed out to competitors under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.
Because of this, Samsung has asked that Apple pay 2.4 percent for every chipset per patent within its 3G-capable iPhones and iPads,” reports Webwereld journalist Andreas Udo de Haes on Twitter. → Read More
It seems premium streaming music service Spotify just inexorably linked its future to Facebook. Fresh from integrating so deeply with Facebook’s OpenGraph that users’ Ticker stream are teaming with their friends’ listening tastes, it is now requiring new users to have a Facebook account first in order to sign-up for the service.
Visitors to the sign-up page are now greeted with “You need a Facebook account to register for Spotify. If you have an account, just log in below to register. If you don’t have a Facebook account, get one by clicking the ‘create an account’ link below.”
The issue has ignited savage debate on Twitter, with one artist management company saying Spotify has “sold its soul to the Devil”.
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The denizens of the green dells of Wisconsin are a bit happier these days, at least in Eau Claire (French for “City Of Very Nice, Quiet People Who Will Smile At You”). The L.E.Philips Memorial Library is now lending out iPads for weekly stints, allowing the good, country stock of Eau Claire to enjoy Apple’s finest between two Sundays. They are also available for in-library use.
iPads are now available for check out at the library thanks to a generous contribution from the Presto Foundation. Each iPad is Wi-Fi compatible and pre-loaded with at least 1,000 classic e-book titles, 10 audiobooks and dozens of free apps and shortcuts to websites. The iPads are available for a 7-day loan period or for a 4-hour in-library use and holds may be placed on the iPads that check out for 7 days. iPads for in-library use only are on a first-come first- served basis.
Facebook has teamed up with the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an effort it claims will help grow American small businesses and create jobs. Starting in January 2012, Facebook will give businesses up to $10 million in free Facebook advertising in the form of ad credits. The goal is to provide 200,000 businesses in the U.S. with a $50 boost.
Meanwhile, Facebook, NFIB and the U.S. Chamber will provide businesses with webinars, collateral, case studies and tips educating business owners on how reach new customers on Facebook. → Read More
If you are wondering why Tumblr just raised $85 million, all you have to do is look at its pageviews. The super-easy blogging platform saw its pageviews jump from about 2 billion a month to 13 billion since the beginning of the year. It recently passed 10 billion posts, and is adding 40 million more every day. According to Quantcast, which directly measures the site, Tumblr attracts 72 million visitors a month, more than half of those from outside the U.S.
But its pageviews are really outsized compared to its visitors. In fact, Tumblr now generates more pageviews per month than Wikipedia, with only a tenth as many visitors, according to comScore. Tumblr is also bigger than Twitter.com in pageviews (but not in unique visitors), and is about half the size of AOL and Craigslist. Below is a snapshot of where Tumblr ranks in Pageviews compared to other select sites in the ComScore Top 100: → Read More
Canadian RIM fans have been privy to some solid deals on RIM’s ailing PlayBook tablet recently, and now those price cuts are beginning to pop up Stateside. Both Office Depot and Staples are now offering their selection of PlayBooks with some significant discounts. → Read More
A group calling itself “The Script Kiddies” hacked USA Today’s Twitter account this weekend and used it to solicit requests for future targets and even to promote its own Facebook page. Although this recent hack seems like more of a childish prank, this group is being taken seriously by the FBI due to its earlier hacks involving false terrorism claims posted to NBC’s Twitter account.
Just days before this year’s anniversary of 9/11, The Script Kiddies posted news that Ground Zero was attacked to @nbcnews, demonstrating a callousness for human tragedy that was seriously disturbing.
Now the group is back in action, taunting Twitter, stroking their egos and asking for your support on Facebook. → Read More
Back in July, Google and Zynga announced that the social gaming giant would be bringing Zynga Poker and other game titles to Google+. But it wasn’t clear if Zynga would be bringing its major and most popular titles on Facebook, FarmVille and CityVille, to Google’s new social platform. Today, Zynga is announcing that it is adding CityVille+ to the new game platform.
CityVille, which allows gamers to construct and build a thriving metropolis, is Zynga’s largest game on Facebook. As Zynga says in its announcement of CityVille+, Ultimately, we want to make our games accessible to everyone, everywhere – no matter where they play or what platform they play on. → Read More
Bose just announced two soundbar systems for home theaters, the Lifestyle 135 System and CineMate 1 SR System. The devices use a single bar to emit what many would call surround-sound audio and can be mounted almost anywhere in the room in almost any position.
The Lifestyle includes a small console with four HDMI inputs, a tuner, and an iPod/iPhone dock. The CineMate simply connects to any TV and both include remotes.
→ Read More
After competitor GrubHub raised a boatload of cash and bought New York-based food delivery network Dotmenu, online food ordering service Seamless is making a major purchase for its expansion today—MenuPages. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and Seamless is purchasing MenuPages from New York Media/New York Magazine (who bought MenuPages in 2008).
Seamless’ food ordering and delivery service promotes, markets and connects local restaurants with business and consumer customers across multiple platforms. The company’s restaurant network includes over 7,500 restaurants in 27 cities globally, including New York, London, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the company claims over one million individuals have ordered through the platform to date. Originally founded in 1999, Seamless says managed volume growth has is projected to exceed $400 million this year, and to date, Seamless has processed more than a billion and a half dollars in restaurant sales.
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Braintree, an Accel-backed online payments provider, announced that it now is processing more than $8 million in online credit card payments daily, which is 268 percent of the same quarter of last year. The company is on track to process more than $3 billion in 2011.
Braintree, which just raised $34 million from Accel Partners, essentially powers and automates online payments for merchants and companies online. The company provides a merchant account, payment gateway, recurring billing, credit card storage, support for mobile and international payments, and PCI Compliance solutions. BrainTree has become a one-stop-shop for all the services a business needs to receive payments from anywhere in the world. The company’s clients include Airbnb, LivingSocial, OpenTable, Animoto, Lookout, Shopify, Brightcove, Hotel Tonight, GoMobo, 37Signals, and GitHub. → Read More
Exclusive - Endomondo, which offers users a way to automatically track their sports data and monitor their performance over time, has raised $2.3 million from SEED Capital, TechCrunch has learned.
The Danish startup says its Sports Tracker social fitness app, which turns mobile phones into “full-fledged personal trainers”, has been downloaded 5 million times (PDF) to date. → Read More
