Where do you publish first if you have more Facebook subscribers than Twitter followers? That’s a question more and more journalists are going to be asking themselves. Just 3.5 months after the launch of Facebook’s late entry into asymmetrical following, many individual content producers including TechCrunch / CrunchFund’s MG Siegler, The New York Times’ Nick Bilton, and myself have have seen our subscriber counts surpass our follower tally. How? Because Facebook’s larger user count makes it easier to amass subscribers. → Read More
I know there are lots of people out there who have passionate feelings about Ron Paul. He’s a principled and independent fighter for old-time American values, or a conspiracy theorist loon, or someone who let idiotic racist stuff get published in his newsletters decades ago… or whatever else it is that you see about him that makes you react.
I’m not here to take sides and tell you how to vote, I’m just writing this article to point out that he’s been gaining the most new Facebook fans every day for most of the past month. He’s now the second-most popular candidate behind Mitt Romney (and Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, of course), according to the Inside Facebook Election Tracker.
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Well, it’s that time of year again when families come together to stare moodily at each other over lunch and, in theory at least, we’re supposed to be thinking about others less fortunate than ourselves. To that end, stay you hand before you switch off the office PC and head off for some seasonal shopping. For those CPUs could be put to good work for charity, no less.
The Charity Engine is a non-profit volunteer computing grid. Based on Berkeley University’s BOINC software for grid computing – as used by dozens of famous ‘citizen science’ projects such as SETI@home. Charity Engine’s version of BOINC simply donates what it makes from research projects on its grid and donates the cash to charity, while incentivising users with randomly generated cash prizes. Profit from the commissions from science and industry is shared 50-50 between the charities and prize winners. You can use the invite code for the beta: CRUNCH. → Read More
Language learning is arguably still a hot topic in the realm of internet startups and with a market that is said to be reaching more than $90 billion it is even more interesting. But only few manage to attract users, such as Busuu, who is now seeing 10 million signed up users. Bratislava based Startup Lingibli, also wants to help you learn a new language, strictly speaking one of 18 languages that are currently offered through the site. The concept however is pretty new since it’s not tighed to online courses or subscriptions but rather on a mobile app (on Android and iOs) and print material (sic!). At first, that might sound awkard, but the startup claims that 50% of all conversations are made up of approx. 100 words and at first knowing these 100 words is essential for understanding a language. Starting to learn a language is surely a difficult barrier to cross. → Read More
Mobile analytics firm Flurry is closing out the year with a look into the forthcoming shift in mobile installed bases expected in 2012. Using data from the firm’s dataset of over 140,000 apps running worldwide, it was able to calculate smartphone penetration in established markets like U.S. and Europe. Then, using additional data from the IMF in combination with Flurry’s own data, the firm was able to then determine which countries represented the top market opportunities for mobile app developers.
Not surprisingly, China and India made the list. But so did the U.S. → Read More
If there’s been a theme for the year it’s that Berlin has emerged as a full-blown startup hub to rival London in terms of sheers number of companies. I know for a fact that all the major VCs, from Accel to Index to Balderton and others are in and out of the city on a regular basis. There’s also a rumour Wellington will open an office there.
It makes sense therefore that Earlybird Venture Capital, which currently manages €430 million in assets and already had a base in Berlin, is to close its Hamburg office and move the staff to the capital. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang – Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor – are recording live at 1pm PT.
Recording has concluded. → Read More
In a brief interview with TechCrunch, GoDaddy’s new CEO, Warren Adelman, did a little damage control relating to the company’s highly public reversal of its position on SOPA. GoDaddy had previously issued a strong statement of support for the controversial bill, which you can find here. The last day has seen a growing grassroots rejection of the company and its position in the form of a boycott. But today brought a statement from the company apparently doing a complete about-face.
Adelman noted that he had “been CEO of this company for all of one week,” and that the complaints and feedback had grown just over the last 24 hours, and it is during this time that he became involved. He said that the feedback made him realize they should “take a step back and look at the current legislation.” Of course, the outcry against SOPA and its twin in the Senate goes back much further. → Read More
The Internet is up in arms about the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and for good reason. It could potentially block and censor sites for alleged copyright infringement without full due process. Companies that support the bill are facing boycotts (GoDaddy just withdrew its support for this reason).
But people on the two sides of the debate still don’t see eye to eye, which is why we invited one of the SOPA’s co-sponsors, Congressman Bill Owens (D-NY), to address the issues. We captured the conversation in the video above. → Read More
When you’ve got a campus with 70,000 students and staff on it, all requiring some form of integrated cloud service, be it for email, scheduling, documents, or what have you, the decision-making process over which service to use is not a trivial one.
Fortunately, UC Berkeley considered it not only necessary, but a duty to the public to not just consider the options carefully but to explain those considerations. They’ve put up a nice detailed comparison of Google and Microsoft’s offerings (Apps and Office 365) as they relate to University business. Anyone or any institution thinking of doing a similar deployment may find it interesting reading. → Read More
Looking for a quick last-minute gift? Not feeling up to fighting the holiday traffic, crowds and checkout lines? Just too lazy busy to shop? Then you may want to consider giving the gift of an iOS app. You can gift any paid app from iTunes on your computer or from the app’s description page on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Just scroll down past the screenshot and look for the “gift this app” button. All you’ll need is the recipient’s email address to complete the transaction.
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Surprise! GoDaddy has just recanted their support of SOPA, issuing a press release and blasting out a massive mountain of tweets on the matter. This comes just hours after they were seemingly cementing their position, shrugging off the boycotts as something that had yet to cause “any impact to [their] business”. → Read More
I swear, it never ends — not long after a U.S. court passed down a judgment that saw RIM change the name of their new operating system, the company has once again gotten themselves into a tiff over trademarks. This time, the name in question is “BBM,” RIM’s preferred shorthand for their popular BlackBerry Messenger service.
The lawsuit comes courtesy of BBM Canada, a not-for-profit broadcast and audience measurement organization that’s been in business considerably longer than RIM has. Originally known as the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, the group was originally founded in 1944 and took on the BBM moniker in 2001 — well before RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger service came to be. → Read More
Users of LogMeIn’s Ignition are in for a pleasant surprise this holiday season. The once paid — and quite expensive — app is now migrating to a freemium model.
That said, users who paid for Ignition won’t have to cough up the dough for a LogMeIn Pro subscription, but they will get the added premium features including HD remote control (and HD streaming) from their computers to their iOS devices. → Read More
You spoke and we listened. The holidays are upon us and yesterday we asked all of you what you would want as a gift out of six different options. Those options were: iPad 2, Canon S100, Kindle Fire, Galaxy Nexus, Boxee Box, and last but not least, a Kinect for Xbox 360. At first, all of you wanted an iPad 2. Then we asked one more time, and you all chose a Galaxy Nexus for your most wanted gift. So, with it being that time of the year and all, we are giving away..
a Galaxy Nexus to one lucky reader! → Read More
HackFwd, the pan-European accelerator created by Lars Hinrichs, the founder of LinkedIn competitor XING, recently held its open PitchInBerlin session, where startups are invited to enter the programme. It’s a sign that HackFwd, one of the few accelerators in Europe to stress the need for technical co-founders, is opening up to new teams. I went to the event in Berlin and interviewed all the startups pitching on the day, as you’ll see in the below video. → Read More
Pop quiz, phone fans: what device will you soon be able to buy in the U.K. that costs nearly twice as much as a Galaxy Nexus and looks three (maybe four!) times stranger? Well, if you’ve read the headline, you already know the answer: it’s the BlackBerry Porsche P’9981.
T3 reports that high-end retailer Harrod’s will be carrying the love-it-or-hate-it device in store by the end of the year. What really gets me is the price tag to it: the Porsche will sell for €1,275 ($1,662, or £1,021). → Read More
“I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.”
There’s a bit of inherent risk when shopping online. You’re handing over your credit card to a retailer that promises to ship you something in return. Most of the time transactions are completed without issue and orders are fulfilled as promised. Sometimes things go awry, though. And sometimes Best Buy ruins Christmas.
Best Buy started reaching out to customers earlier this week — you know, mere days before Christmas — that the retailer was unable to fulfill orders placed as far back as November. Big Blue was sorry but they were canceling the affected orders. Happy holidays! Signed, your merry friends at Best Buy! → Read More
Sorry Galaxy S owners — even though your device has a near-identical spec sheet to the ICS-friendly Nexus S, Samsung has announced on their corporate blog that the company’s first Galaxy device won’t be getting the offical bump to Android 4.0.
The original Galaxy S isn’t the only one to get the snub, as the 7-inch Galaxy Tab won’t be able to join in the fun either.
It looks like TouchWiz deserves most of the blame here — according to Samsung Tomorrow, neither device has enough RAM or ROM to accomodate TouchWiz and all of its Samsung-designed accoutrements without affecting the quality of use. → Read More
NXP Software, developer of the CineXPlayer mobile application, is launching a new iOS app for recording and converting video into 3D. The app, VideoCam3D, lets you record in both blue/red and split screen 3D and works in conjunction with the CineXPlayer video viewing app, which also supports 3D movie playback.
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