Israeli startup Superfly, which debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010, launched earlier this year as a service to organize travel rewards (i.e. frequent flier miles or hotel rewards) and educate users on how to maximize their value when using rewards points or miles.
Today, Superfly is taking this a step further by allowing users to book air travel through the website and receive personalized recommendations based on status, miles and more. → Read More
Looking for a last-minute holiday gift? How about that Groupon you never used? Daily deal vouchers wouldn’t actually make bad presents if there was a way to gift them that didn’t involve an email printout tucked into a card. That’s where Presentify.me, which turns deal vouchers into attractive gift certificates, can help.
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Alibaba.com, the massive B2B e-commerce company based in China, this morning published (PDF) its results for the third quarter of the year. The company reported a 11.9 percent increase (to $64 million) in its Q3 net profit, with revenues rising 10.6 percent to $250 million, year-over-year.
This was below Wall Street expectations; Alibaba blamed a weak U.S. economy, a decline in manufacturing, the eurozone debt crisis and on-going platform enhancement activities for missing analysts’ forecasts. → Read More
I recently had the pleasure of visiting a European city which is to a great extent a true example of how technology is changing society and business across Europe today. Once, Krakow was a city infamous for its nearness to Auschwitz and a terrifying example of how the Nazis could destroy a previously peaceful society where people of many creeds had lived together in peace. Under the Soviet occupation, it was just another grey Polish city. But since liberation in the later 1980s and the emergence of a strong Polish market economy in the 1990s/2000s, Krakow is taking its place in the technology world, along with the major hub of Warsaw, as a crucible of technology innovation.
I flew to Krakow to join the burgeoning startup group there known as Hive which showcased pitches from local startups aiming to go global. While there I shot the ‘mini documentary’ below which gives you a flavour of some of the early startup companies in Poland.
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Simroid, a super-realistic dental training robot developed in Japan, caused quite a splash in news outlets worldwide when it made its debut in 2007. The level of realism was pretty high back then, but it’s even higher in the new version that was showcased in Tokyo a few days ago.
The basic idea is that Simroid simulates a human patient during a dental check-up by moving and speaking as realistically as possible, including the simulation of gag reflexes or negative reactions when the doctor touches her “breasts” by accident. Two cameras are recording the treatment, which makes it possible to evaluate the performance of dental students after each training session. → Read More
Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: → Read More
Several news outlets today wrongly reported that Anonymous Antisec hackers had leaked “newly available” Facebook law enforcement guidelines that explain how and what data can be obtained by officials with a subpoena, warrant, or court order. In fact, many versions of the outdated guides were already widely available thanks to an Electronic Frontier Foundation Freedom of Information Act request, as well as other sources.
Though previously available and out of date, the new coverage about how Facebook provides user information when obliged by law could stoke fears about data privacy and Big Brother. By being more public with its law enforcement, guidelines Facebook could have avoided seemingly like it had something worth “leaking”. → Read More
As AllThingsD reported in September, travel search engine Kayak has put its IPO on hold until market conditions improve. Kayak filed its S-1 for a public offering nearly a year ago. Today, the company just filed a new S-1 with its revenue numbers from the third quarter ended September 30, 2011.
During the most recent quarter, Kayak posted $61.16 million in revenue, up 28 percent from the same quarter in 2010. The company also increased revenue slightly from the second quarter 2011, which came in at $56.7 million.
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Yesterday, Bloomberg published a story stating that Apple had made a major (and, frankly, somewhat surprising) change to its App Store policies: it was going to begin allowing game publishers to sell bundles of games as monthly subscriptions, as opposed to a la carte. Historically all games on the App Store have been sold as one-off purchases (or for free), and they can generate further revenue by offering in-app goods and services.
But last week, game developer Big Fish Games introduced an app with a different model. Gamers would purchase the app, and, for $6.99 a month, they’d have access to “dozens” of games within that application (in other words, each game would not require a separate download). Such a model could potentially be a big deal for other gaming companies like Zynga, which could establish ‘hub’ apps rather than having to launch a new app for each game.
As it turns out, that doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon. → Read More
Good news people who are really curious about Quora growth! You might one day be reading an article like this about Quora …
Because Quora has hired a former Twitter and Facebook guy, Andy Johns, to focus on user growth and engagement. Johns, who tweets under the apropos username @ibringtraffic, spent a year and four months at Twitter, two years at Facebook and is now taking his speciality to the fancy Q&A startup.
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Most of the communications apps that have gotten big on smartphones have been built by well-established companies that have existing user bases they can promote to, with Facebook, Twitter and Skype being the top examples. The other successes have most often had venture money to help them cover advertising costs.
But a smaller startup has been climbing up the iTunes App Store and Android Market charges over the last few days. Called Voxer, it provides a walkie talkie push-to-talk voice service reminiscent of Nextel. Or, in modern parlance, it’s sort of like text messages but with voice instead of text. It’s basically a direct competitor to another startup, HeyTell, that we’ve covered, as well as TalkBox… and getting to be more of a competitor every day, judging by its recent trajectory.
The app has gone from #40 to #7 within the past week within the social networking category of the United States App Store, following its rise earlier this year in random other countries like Brazil and Saudi Arabia. It’s now a trend among many Twitter users, too. (Yeah, the social networking category isn’t especially big once you get past the leading web services, but this much growth for this type of app is unusual.) → Read More
When Bonfire went live last month we had high hopes for this tiny startup which planned to bring instant messaging to the Twitter web site, Facebook-chat style.
With this IM presence, now you would know if your Twitter friends were online or not. The horror…
Except, it didn’t work.
Bonfire crashed under the weight of TechCrunch’s readership and we didn’t hear from them again for some time. Well, it happens.
But, boys and girls, Bonfire is back and appears to be working just fine. Unless of course this post kills it again in 3…2..1… → Read More
Yesterday afternoon, we wrote about an Android developer who’d received a cease-and-desist letter from Carrier IQ, a company whose Android software he’d been investigating.
This morning, under the light of a dozen spotlights, Carrier IQ has retracted their C&D and publicly apologized to the developer. → Read More
This is a guest post by Liam Boogar, a Californian-native writing in English about the French Startup scene on RudeBaguette.com
This past weekend I was invited to be a juror for Startup Weekend Strasbourg, one of many Startup Weekend events going on this weekend during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011. Having never heard of anything startup-related in Strasbourg, I expected to see your standard “1st edition” of StartupWeekend: 50-70 participants, a lack of developers, and a relative ‘youth’ (read: mediocrity) in the ideas – boy was I in for a surprise. → Read More
It’s been an interesting journey for mydeco, the home design and furnishings startup founded by the management team behind lastminute.com, one of Europe’s most successful ever online businesses. Back in 2008 the site was ground-breaking in its use of 3D imaging to allow for interactive planning and visualisation tools. It even had a social network. But although doing well enough, the game has changed. Consumers are now assaulted by choice – and the 3D design tools were always slightly more functional than the average person needed or wanted. Instead of designing an infinite number of rooms, and purchase the items therein, mydeco now wants to woo its users by becoming a retailer specialising in curation. As CEO Nicole Vanderbilt told me “We’re a bit like ASOS. We started with an aggregator, we’re now becoming more of a retailer. Retailers own the customer and there are higher margins in that. But we eventually want to be the Google Maps of Interiors – anywhere you want to create beautiful rooms we will be there.”
To that end mydeco is now pivoting its model by splitting its business in two. The original site now become a affiliate-driven marketplace for home furnishings under a new name, mydecomarketplace.com. The new direction has meant zydeco has received £2million from EVC Partners / BV Capital, taking the total raised to more than £10 million. → Read More
The consumer electronics search service Decide.com is teaming up with Consumer Reports on a new deals site which aims to help shoppers know what and when to buy new electronics. Although the companies are referring to the project as a “daily deals” outlet, they don’t mean “deals” in the sense of Groupon, Living Social or flash sale sites like Gilt or One Kings Lane.
Instead, the service is more like a blog/reviews site which features Consumer Reports’ product recommendations alongside Decide’s own data telling you when to buy the item in question. → Read More
Pro Tip: If your new business plan entails buying a bunch of domains that are clearly just one letter off from that of a major brand, you’re probably doing it wrong.
Such is the case for one gent from Illinois, who snatched up not one, not two, but six domains meant to look nearly identical to YouTube.com, filling them dubious surveys. As you’d expect, Google has now moved to seize the domains. → Read More
Guess who seems to be most interested in the plight of the 99%? “Jetset urbanites” according to Experian Hitwise, which used its Experian Mosiac audience profiling system to track traffic to Occupy movement sites from various consumer lifestyles, because hey, why not?
According to Experian Mosaic, which separates people into Starbucks-esque categories like “Gotham Blend,” “Dare to Dream,” “Aging of Aquarius” and “Bohemian Grove” (a little vomit just came up into my mouth), sites like occupywallstreet.org and others in the Occupy category were most visited in the past three months by “Jetset Urbanites,” a segment of the population that was “highly affluent, progressive and tends to live in major metropolitan areas” with a group of people known as “Colleges and Cafes” coming in second with regards to visits. Quelle surprise! → Read More
Alright folks. If you’re still young enough, immature enough, or bankless enough to own a piggy bank, it’s time to crack that thing open. Black Friday is (count ‘em) two days away, and if you don’t have a plan by now then let’s get to it.
In no particular order, here are some of the Black Friday gadget deals that stand out to us (some are still leaks and thus unverified, but we’ll make it clear which sales are official and which are still a bit mysterious). → Read More
Barcelona, Spain
New York City
San Francisco, CA
