The distributive potential of the internet has done its part in disrupting the music industry, most visibly via iTunes. But iTunes was always a sort of simulacrum of a record store. Its icon was even a CD. They were providing, like Amazon, a digital abstraction of a physical store.
Where would we be if computers were just digital abstractions of desks full of paper? They were, of course, for a short time, but since then the potential of the home PC has pushed it further and further from the simple desk analogy. Why shouldn’t it be the same in music?
Many readers of this site are already happily signing up for the new music-streaming services of the net, but much of the world, including the music industry, is lagging far behind and blaming the new services when monetization doesn’t work how they expect. The streamers have responded: Hey, don’t look at us. → Read More
Ecommerce sites should consider how they can personalize their sites using Facebook data, as a new study shows 50% of visitors to ecommerce sites are currently logged in to Facebook. Using Facebook social plugins and Connect integrations, sites can leverage Facebook data to show visitors what friends bought or shared, what products relate to their Likes, and which friends they might want to invite. The study was conducted by Sociable Labs, which helps websites implement social functionality, and looked at 456 million visits to over a dozen ecommerce sites catering to different demographic → Read More
Following my post last night about our effort to use CrunchBase in more ways on TechCrunch, some readers have shared how they’re already using it. One was Dirk Neumann from “social supercomputer” startup Opani, which provides tools to help people more easily analyze large data sets.
He’s used CrunchBase data to try to come up with a formula for pricing talent in startup acquisitions. His analysis, below, is in response to a recent panel at law firm Orrick, where a number of acquisition heads at major tech companies had noted that there was “no general formula” for doing so.
He identified 71 early-stage acquisitions and 84 late-stage acquisitions in CrunchBase, then further defined the early stage group as startups purchased for below $66 million, with fewer than 50 employees, and investments of less than $5 million. Later-stage companies were defined as having acquisition prices above $66 million and between 50 and 500 employees. The findings are a bit rough, but here they are: → Read More
Online pinboard Pinterest is the new hotness. VCs are piling in because it is growing like crazy. How crazy? According to comScore, Pinterest generated 421 million pageviews in the U.S. in October, up 2,000 percent since June when it was at an estimated 20 million. Pinterest, which is still in an invite-only beta, has already surpassed the U.S. pageviews of much more established sites such as Etsy (which grew a healthy 47 percent since June to 348 million pageviews in October).
I am comparing Pinterest to Etsy because, while one is an ecommerce marketplace and the other is more of a crowdsourced catalog, they both seem to appeal to the same types of people—mostly women interested in design, fashion, and quality products that are not mainstream. Also, from what I can tell anecdotally, Etsy items are very popular on Pinterest. → Read More
We crave inspiration. When energy is low or there’s a pause in our day, we turn to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for stimulation. But there, exhilaration is buried within exhausting, endless streams of content. DailyModi is a brand new free iPhone app committed to structuring inspiration into bursts of discovery. With addictive finger swipes, you rate your way through 3 daily slideshows of paintings, shoes, typography, and more. Compare preferences with friends, and buy or learn about what you like. Leave feeling satisfied, and return tomorrow for more. → Read More
One of the primary criticisms of the BlackBerry PlayBook, and rightly so, was the omission of native email, contacts, and calendar applications. It was troubling then that they hadn’t considered these primary activities as important to address natively, and it’s troubling that it has taken then so very long deliver these elementary functions.
RIM originally said these reviews weren’t “fair,” but regardless of the quality of the OS and the device itself (both of which seem perfectly fine), it’s criminal to subject your loyal users to such a long wait for an email client competitive with Apple and Google. But at least the apps are being finalized, and were just showed off at the BlackBerry Innovation Forum. → Read More
The holiday season is upon us, and no gift keeps on giving quite like a smartphone. Think about it — there’s probably nothing in your dear friend or family member’s life that he or she will use on a regular basis more than their trusty new smartphone. And if you happen to be a super controlling boyfriend or girlfriend, just think of this spent cash as the best possible way to keep dibs on your sweetie pie. Prices range from $50 to a whopping $300 so there should be something here for everyone. If not, check out the BlackBerry lineup at your nearest retailer because you surely won’t see it anywhere here. → Read More
Since Google CEO Larry Page took the helm this past spring, one of the company’s most visible initiatives has been to trim and shut down its products that haven’t taken off. These have included Aardvark, Google Desktop, Fast Flip, Code Search, Buzz, Jaiku, and even Google Labs — and today, it’s announcing a new batch of products that will be shut down in the coming months.
Among the casualties (some of which had previously been announced): Google’s Wikipedia challenger, Google Knol, Google Friend Connect (which is being supplanted by Google+), and Google Wave — which Google ended development on a year ago and will soon close down entirely.
Knol, in particular, comes as something of a surprise to me — because I figured Google had already shut it down. The site first launched back in 2008 to much fanfare, as Google introduced a potential Wikipedia challenger that would allow article contributors to monetize their content (the idea being that if you wrote content worth reading, you could make some money off of it). → Read More
Folks who want to connect their Kinect to their PCs can now use specially-designed hardware to add real-time, 3D tracking to programs, games, and research projects. Using the Kintect SDK hackers can add the Kinect to nearly any hardware.
Improvements include a new “Near Mode” that allows for objects at about 50 centimeters away from the sensor to register in 3D space, the first step to adding Kinect functionality to a desktop computer. → Read More
The idea of information being presented directly to your eyes, be it by glasses, contacts, distant lasers, or brain implants, has existed for decades. But like so many sci-fi concepts, the engineering is slightly more difficult than the idea work. While we’ve seen lots of work in artificial eyes, head-mounted displays, and cortical implants, the on-eye display has remained elusive.
Progress is being made, though. Researchers at the University of Washington and Aalto University in Finland have successfully created a simple wireless contact lens display and tested it on a live eye — a proof of concept that may presage more sophisticated devices. People wonder what kind of display comes after the touchscreen; it may be something like this. → Read More
I hope you like the landscape you see here because if you buy Amateur Pixel’s new Desert Bus app, you’ll be looking at it for the next eight hours. Seriously. → Read More
You’ve changed something on your website, and everyone hates it. At least, that’s how it seems. Once you’ve grown past, say… 10 users, change will almost always be resisted. You get used to it.
More often than not, unsolicited user feedback isn’t super helpful (if only because it usually boils down to “You suck! Screw your new logo! I’m removing you from my RSS reader!”). Sometimes, though, the userbase really does know what it wants — but even then, it can be hard for them to express it properly. That’s where Wishbox comes in.
By combining on-the-fly screenshots with an in-browser annotations tool, Wishbox allows even your most technically inept users to send visual feedback straight to your inbox. → Read More
In two and a half weeks since its launch, micro-recommendation app Oink has clocked in a 100k downloads, with a symmetrical 100k items added and tagged. A product of Kevin Rose’s Milk Studios, Rose tells me that the app is now seeing a new Oink (rating) every four seconds and almost a million user sessions.
The app has also dropped the “Oink Builder” label and the invite only sign up system. And, while I was at first skeptical, it proved actually useful to me, as in I opened it up and scrolled through all my friends’ Oinks in order to determine where I would grab lunch with a friend yesterday (you can do this more precisely by opening the app, hitting “Discover” and sliding the top slider to a mile radius). → Read More
The runaway growth of Sina’s microblog service Weibo has been one of the hottest tech stories of the year in China, and we found out the power of the platform firsthand during the promotion and planning of TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing. One curious thing about China’s microblog wars is that an older technology company– not a scrappy startup– became the dominant winner. That’s partially a testament to how entrenched the massive Web brands are with Chinese users and evidence of Sina’s willingness to cooperate with the government, back when other microblogs like Twitter were shut down. → Read More
Based on the RepRap platform, the Printrbot is a $499 3D printer accessible to everyone. Designed to be built in a few hours, this Kickstarter project includes multiple levels of kit completion – $199, for example, gets you most of the parts except for the extruder while $500 gets you the whole caboodle. It is completely expandable and can build items 5 by 5 by 5 inches, although you can upgrade to 12 x 12 x 12.
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Android security researcher Trevor Eckhart has recently found himself in some hot water after performing a deep dive into mobile tracking software from a company called Carrier IQ. He managed to figure out how Carrier IQ’s software worked and what it could monitor, but in doing so he has earned the company’s ire.
Carrier IQ has filed a cease-and-desist letter [PDF] against Eckhart claiming that he committed copyright infringement by reproducing some of the company’s training materials in his post and that he made “false allegations” about the nature of their software. → Read More
Mobile analytics firm Distimo has taken a look at Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace one year after its launch in November 2010. Now available in 35 countries worldwide, the store has grown consistently in size and scope since its debut, at a rate of 700 new publishers added per month. But its app download volume, in comparison with market leader iTunes, is still quite small. In fact, it’s 39 times smaller relative to Apple’s App Store for the iPhone. → Read More
Last week, Intuit co-founder Scott Cook appeared on my show and extolled the virtues of the Chinese economic development model. Cook used the example of Deng Xiaoping’s establishment of “Special Economic Zones” such as in Shenzhen that, he said, has resulted in 300 million Chinese people being liberated from “grinding poverty”. Today, the acclaimed monologist Mike Daisey responds to Scott Cook’s argument, describing the defense of Special Economic Zones as “absolutely sickening” and claiming that Cook needed to “wake up” to the appallingly cruel realities of working conditions in Shenzhen. → Read More
At its f8 developer event in September, Facebook unveiled one of the biggest reinventions of its user profiles since the site first launched: Timelines.
Activate the feature, which is still in beta, and your Facebook profile morphs from what was effectively a feed of your most recent activities to something a lot more personal — you can feature your favorite photos, add widgets showcasing your most-recently listened to songs, and more.
And now Loytr, the developer behind the very popular MyPad for Facebook app, has launched an iPad app dedicated to browsing through these revamped profiles. It’s called Timelines for Facebook, and you can download it right here.
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Last year, we wrote about email software company Xobni’s survey that showed that going completely offline from email over the holidays is a thing of the past. And this year’s survey from Xobni reports that even more adults will be checking email over the holidays.
According to the survey 79 percent of U.S. working adults have received work-related emails on the holidays; and 68 percent plan to check emails during Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.
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