November 2012
Language Learning Service Verbling Launches Google Hangouts-Powered Classes, Adds Support For 9 New Languages
Learning a new language can be tedious and frustrating. Thankfully, a new generation of startups are leveraging advances in mobile and web technologies to make that process more enjoyable and…
Why Did Google Buy BufferBox? Because The Entire Mail And Package Delivery System Is Broken
Today, Google bought an Ontario-based company called BufferBox. In a way, it kind of came out of left field. Since it’s a Google Ventures company, one can guess that those…
Editor’s note: Alexander Aghassipour is chief product officer and co-founder of Zendesk, and Shajith Chacko is lead software engineer at Zendesk. Our traditional app had been serving our business and customers…
The Weekly Good: Gurbaksh Chahal, BeProud.org And Putting An End To Hate
Sometimes, it’s not political powerhouses who have the power to change the world, sometimes it’s true-blue entrepreneurs who live to solve problems. One such person is Gurbaksh Chahal, who has…
Backops Outsources Your Startup’s Back Office Using The Best Enterprise Apps, Raises $1.5M
Early-stage startups die if they don’t nail their core products quickly. But like all companies, they also need to process loads of paperwork required for basic operations, from crunching numbers…
Settle Down, Facebook Users, ‘Cause You’re Not Getting $1M For Sharing A Pic Of A Fake Lottery Ticket
In today’s edition of Facebook scams comes the story of Nolan Daniels and his $1M lottery ticket picture. “Looks like I won’t be going to work EVER!!!! Share this photo…
Court Rules Yahoo Must Pay $2.7 Billion For Mexican Yellow Pages Breach Of Contract
Yahoo says it “will vigorously pursue all appeals” of a non-final judgement by a Mexico City court ruling Yahoo must pay $2.7 billion for breaching its contract with Ideas Interactivas and its…
Apps Like Rockmelt Ditch Social-Only Signup, Add Email So Privacy Buffs Can “Try Before You Pry”
Rockmelt’s recently released iPad app only offered signup through Facebook and Twitter, leading 50 percent of users not to sign in at all. So today it followed Pinterest and Spotify by moving…
Review: Squier By Fender Strat Guitar With USB Connection
The Squier Strat by Fender (or Squier by Fender Strat or however they want to name this thing) is one of the first guitars with a built-in digital signal processor.…
Cinemagram Raises $8.5M Series A Led By Menlo Ventures To Make Mobile Photo Sharing More Animated
Cinemagram, a startup founded in Montreal that’s now moving to San Francisco, today announced an $8.5 million Series A round via AllThingsD. The investment comes from Menlo Ventures, Khosla Ventures,…
Paul Maritz To Lead New Group At EMC That Merges Greenplum With VMware’s Cloud Foundry, SpringSource, And Gemstome
Paul Maritz will lead a new platform group that will combine VMware’s Cloud Foundry, SpringSource and Gemstone with Greenplum, EMC’s big data platform.
Productivity App Evernote Gets Another $85M, ~$64M In Secondary Financing, Led By London’s AGC Equity
Evernote, the personal data and productivity app that now has over 40 million users, is today announcing it has raised another $85 million, with 75% of that, $63.75 million, in…
Update: Facebook Website Experienced 20 Minutes Of Downtime, Mobile App And Website Were Still Working
People on Twitter are complaining that Facebook has been down for about 10 minutes at the time of writing this article. Many TechCrunch writers could confirm the issue. The mobile…
With 1B Pageviews Under Its Belt, UGC Giant Wikia Raises $10.8M From IVP, Bessemer & Amazon
User generated content company Wikia is breaking the news of its raise of over $10.8 million in Series C funding today in a press release soon to be sent out…
Kngine Aims To Build A Natural Language-Driven App That Can Answer Any Question
Kngine (pronounced kin-gin, short for knowledge engine) is one of those startups with a goal that’s both straightforward and impressively ambitious — it wants to build an app that can…
Fab Has Its First Million-Dollar Day; Sold More Than $6.5M Worth Of Products This Past Week
Design-focused e-commerce site Fab released a number of data this morning, and it’s impressive to say the least. Fab has sold more than $6.5 million worth of product this past…
What Will Happen When The Surface Pro Isn’t The Only Flagship Win8 Tablet In Town?
The Surface Pro launches in January, just after the holiday rush. It’s a pricey bauble at $899 plus an extra hundred for the Touch Cover. But everyone is excited. This…
Foodspotting Launches A Pilot Rewards-For-Photos Program In San Francisco
Foodspotting is launching a new feature today that allows restaurants to promote themselves to hungry locals — and also provides one of the first big opportunities for the startup to…
Google Acquires Waterloo-Based E-Commerce Startup, Amazon Locker Competitor And YC Graduate BufferBox
Google today announced their acquisition of YC alumni BufferBox, a Waterloo-based startup that specializes in providing users with temporary lockers to receive delivery of packages from online e-commerce retailers. The…
Flash Deals Site NoMoreRack Raises $12M, Hits 5.8M Members
Back in July, we caught up with New York-based startup NoMoreRack, a flash sales site that, unlike some of the most popular players in the space, isn’t relying on luxury…
MyFiveBy Wants To Join The Conversation With A Unique, Browser-Based Microblogging Tool
Every few years someone tries to unseat the big social networks by creating something unique and unusual. They often fail. However, I think MyFiveBy has a fighting chance. Built by…
Facebook Enters Cloud Storage And Chows Down On Metadata With Rollout Of Mobile Photo Sync Background Uploads
Facebook can now save photos you don’t publish, which effectively makes it a cloud storage locker. Today it starts rolling out its Photo Sync background uploads feature to all users…
Google Adds Key Facts About Medicines To Its Knowledge Graph Results
Google’s Knowledge Graph is quickly becoming one of the key features of the company’s search engine and today, the company added yet another area of information to the project. Starting…
Inside Shinola, The Detroit Company That’s Building Gadgets Made In The USA (Yes, Really)
It’s no secret that manufacturing activity in the United States has taken a nosedive in recent decades as globalization has made it more financially profitable to offshore the making of…
Instagram Co-Founder Mike Krieger’s 8 Principles For Building Products People Want
Mike Krieger, Instagram’s founder thinks you can build apps that fit the real world by watching what people want, not guessing. He presented his eight core product design insights today…
Dwolla Launches Guest Checkout Option For Merchants, Allows Shoppers To Pay With Dwolla Without Signing Up
Online and mobile digital cash network Dwolla is breaking down one of the barriers to entry to using its service with today’s introduction of a new “guest checkout” feature for online merchants.…
As one of TechCrunch’s resident watch fans, I was intrigued by the Victorinox Dive Master 500, a fairly unique automatic watch that brings the best of the Swiss mechanical along…
Network Giants Argue In Appeals Court: Aereo Should Be Treated Like A Cable Company
Today the Southern District Court of NY heard the oral argumentsfrom Fox, ABC, Univision and a handful of other cable broadcast providers who wish to see streaming network TV startup…
A First Look At The 2012 21.5-inch iMac, And How It Compares To Generations Past
The new iMac all-in-one desktop computer from Apple goes on sale today, and it includes a significant hardware redesign. Apple has cut bulk and thinned out the edges with a…
Foundation Video: Melody McCloskey Of StyleSeat On Getting Investors Involved In A Beauty Startup
In the most recent episode of my Foundation video series, I sat down with the founder of StyleSeat, Melody McCloskey. Melody shares how her frustration with finding a stylist inspired…
