While Google waits for the United States Department of Justice to sign off on their proposal to merge with handset maker Motorola Mobility, the European Commission has officially given the deal their approval.
According to Commission Vice President Joaquín Almunia, the acquisition was approved because “upon careful examination, this transaction does not itself raise competition issues.” That isn’t to say that the commission can now wash their hands of the matter, as they still plan to keep their eyes on the actions of major wireless players. → Read More
The professional networking space has been heating up over the last few years, with a number of players vying for control of our digital resumes, job and employment searches, and career buildings. For all intents and purposes, LinkedIn controls the mindshare, but a couple of newcomers are beginning to give the leader a run for its money. The first is BranchOut, the professional networking service built on top of Facebook, which, like everything Facebook, has been growing like gangbusters since its inception in 2010.
Then there’s San Francisco-based Identified.com, a professed “data and analytics company” that development its eponymous “Identified Score” to measure how “in demand” users’ professional backgrounds are to companies — right now. Of course, both companies have a long way to go before they catch up to LinkedIn, which, going on Q4 numbers has a membership of 150 million-plus registered users. → Read More
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Founded just seven and a half years ago, Glam Media is one of Silicon Valley’s few media success stories. Beginning in the women’s interest vertical and expanding to entertainment, health and wellness and now food, Glam acquired Ning last September and is rumored to be preparing an IPO for later this year. Glam’s great achievement, it claims, is to pioneer “vertical media” and thus to “transform the way consumers interact with content”. → Read More
As everyone and their dog moves to online production, podcasters have long hunted for a way to monetize their goods. Apps are available that let you sell podcasts for a set price, but what about aggregation over multiple platforms and using varying monetization models? More important, podcasters don’t want to do all the computerin’ to make these things work. That’s why Libsyn created MyLibsyn, a cross-platform (web, iOS, and Android) system for disseminating free and paid content from a central app.
Libsyn has just created something akin to the Netflix of content syndication. Podcasters who join must offer one piece of premium content per month as well as make their back catalog subscriber-only. Although they already offer standalone Android and iOS apps for certain podcasts, MyLibsyn assists in podcast discovery by putting all the popular podcasts in one place and, by ensuring only quality product appears in the app, it reduces the chance that podcast listeners will be disappointed and move on. → Read More
New data from app search firm Xyologic released this morning paints a picture of the relative success (or lack thereof) of the Google TV platform. By examining the install base for the apps exclusive to the Google TV platform, it’s clear that the Google media center product is still only attracting a niche crowd of early adopters. Of the nearly 4.8 million installed apps that are exclusive to Google TV, only 352,000 of them represent user downloads – the remaining 4,441,000 are pre-installed applications.
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Domain names are important, and some might even say that a premium, memorable domain name is priceless. Wherever you fall, tough to argue against businesses moving to scoop up short, descriptive domain names that are easy to remember. It can give your business, customers, and search engines a simple and quick way to find you, along with brand protection and an increase in traffic, not unlike prominent placement in the yellow pages or the local shopping mall for brick-and-mortars.
Today, we’ve learned that ViSalus Sciences, a direct sales “health transformation company” that distributes weight management and nutritional supplement products, has entered the shortlist of pricey domain name buyers, announcing today that it has acquired “challenge.com” and “vi.com” for $500,000 and $325,000, respectively. → Read More
Austin-based cloud apps startup Spanning, which provides a backup service for Google Apps, just launched a new version of its service (Spanning 3.0) which includes a feature I.T. admins are sure to love: a health monitor for Google Apps. The new dashboard shows the status of a company’s Google Apps system, including problems, errors, possible causes and suggested fixes. Day-by-day reports are available, too.
But Spanning’s most visible change may be the service’s updated style, courtesy of ex-Frog designer BJ Heinley.
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Matchbook was founded under the simple belief that mobile technology can make people’s lives easier — not just in the interest of early adopters and tech enthusiasts — but for moms and grandmothers, and the many non-tech-savvy people out there. Once upon a time, if you wanted to remember, say, a restaurant you loved or wanted to try, you went in and grabbed a branded matchbook from that venue. (Those were the days when smoking actually gave people use for those matchbooks.) The rise of mobile devices transferred that behavior into note-taking apps of all varieties. Matchbook then took those mobile notepads and built an app to enhance that experience, allowing users to more easily remember those must-visit places they hear about from friends, blogs, or just in passing by. → Read More
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CruiseWise, a new online travel agency dedicated to booking cruises, is opening its doors today. The startup aims to simplify the online cruise booking process, bringing it up to par with what you find now when booking hotels or flights.
With site’s online search engine, customers can compare prices, routes, cabin choices and other options across multiple cruise lines and see the full amount for the cruise by total number of passengers, including tax. → Read More
As you’ll notice quite quickly from this infographic, we’re pitting the Droid 4 against its predecessor, the Droid 3, along with the iPhone 4S. For anyone who isn’t a die-hard Android fan, the iPhone 4S usually comes into the equation when it comes time to upgrade hardware. Since many of our reviews will be of Android devices (and Windows Phone) rather than iOS, we wanted to make sure to let you visualize the differences between the handset we’re reviewing and its biggest competitors. → Read More
Following the attack on Microsoft’s online store in India, in which a team of (purportedly) Chinese hackers defaced the site and stole user credentials, the company is now alerting users via email that their passwords will be automatically reset on their behalf.
According to the email, Microsoft also says the databases storing credit card details and payment information were not compromised, but customer account information, including email address, passwords, order details and shipping addresses may have been affected. → Read More
Samsung is no slouch when it comes to producing smaller tablets — their first foray into the Android tab market was the 7-inch Galaxy Tab, and they recently revisited that form factor with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. In fact, Samsung seems to love the concept of a 7-inch tablet so much that they have announced their first Ice Cream Sandwich-powered tablet will be the (take a guess!) 7-inch Galaxy Tab 2.
While the news of a new Android 4.0 tablet is enough to get some gadget fans all hot and bothered, the Galaxy Tab 2′s spec sheet doesn’t illustrate much technical improvement over its forebears. → Read More
SHAPE Services, the company behind the cross-platform IM+ messaging applications has raised $10 million from Russian investment firm Finam.
IM+ unites all communication needs under a single interface, integrating with Facebook Chat, Twitter, MSN Live Messenger, Skype IM, Google Talk, AOL, ICQ and others. The app currently has 17.5 million users and 800 million mobile ad impressions per month. → Read More
British video search company Blinkx saw its stock spike briefly this morning, following an announcement that it will power AOL’s video search. AOL is one of the largest video destinations on the Web, with about 450 million video views per month according to comScore.
Blinkx will also incorporate AOL’s premium videos in its own search engine. (Presumably, that will include TCTV videos, since we are owned by AOL). Blinkx itself attracts 55 million U.S. video searchers a month. AOL’s video properties are watched by about 40 million unique viewers (comScore), so the deal could significantly expand blinkx’s reach. → Read More
I was walking home last week and the entire street – and some of the sidewalk – was blocked by large fire trucks and a gaggle of firemen in full regalia. The ladder truck was already planted firmly on the asphalt, ready to send a stream of water soaring over nearby apartment buildings and more trucks were coming, clogging the one-way street further.
Convinced I was about to see an inferno, I tentatively crossed the street. I assumed I’d be stopped and turned away. Instead, the firemen joked and jostled on the sidewalk and I saw a contractor arguing with someone I assumed to be a building resident. The contractor must have been welding – you could still smell the flux and the smoke – and the resident was clearly concerned. → Read More
Because I am going to be an awesome Mom, I will totally keep my ears open to the best possible options for my kids, because I’ve totally set my sights on that, focusing on family instead of career and all. Obviously.
Until hell freezes over then, I will be buying my more reproduction-friendly friends subscriptions to Wittlebee (rhymes with “little bee”), a Science-backed ”get random stuff sent to you” startup run by my old friend and former Myspace marketing exec Sean Percival. → Read More
Apple took the top spot from Google for the highest corporate reputation score, according to the 2012 Harris Poll Reputation Quotient, a survey which measures corporate reputation for brands and companies in the U.S. The poll asks the general public to measure the reputations of the 60 most visible companies in the country. As reported last year, Google was top of the list in 2011′s rankings, followed by Apple and Amazon.
Harris says that Apple took the highest RQ score (85.62 this year, the highest RQ score ever achieved by any company in the 13 years of the RQ study) to secure the top spot in the ranking, with Google and the Coca-Cola Company taking the second and third spots, respectively. Amazon also saw a jump in reputation score, moving up from eighth to fourth place with Kraft Foods ranking fifth.
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Bullhorn, which develops a recruitment software and applicant tracking system, is releasing a new Social Recruiting Activity Report, which examines the usage of social media in executive and job recruiting. Bullhorn found that LinkedIn leads among the frequency of usage by recruiters and their effectiveness for sourcing candidates, followed by Twitter, with Facebook coming in third.
It’s important to note that this study examines activity by recruiters as opposed to actual job hunters. Despite the rise of Facebook as a source for job seeking and professional networking, Bullhorn’s data shows that recruiters’ LinkedIn networks still drive more views than their Twitter and Facebook networks combined. Recruiters who post jobs on social networks are likely to receive more applications from LinkedIn, with the social network driving almost nine times more applications than Facebook and three times more than Twitter. → Read More
Pops, maker of an application that adds another dimension to the mobile notifications people receive on their Android smartphones, has raised $1.5 million from Mangrove Capital Partners, who were early investors in companies like Skype, Rdio, OpenX, Kupivip.ru, Nimbuzz and Wix.
The Pops app basically enables mobile users to customize smartphone alerts, including new email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and whatnot in a more creative way than you’re used to. → Read More
I was debating with myself whether this should be a post or not, and then decided I should just ask out loud on Twitter if it was a good idea or not.
Because three people immediately told me that it was (two of those people were smart, attractive women, I might add), and because TechCrunch founder and former fearless leader Michael Arrington has a long history of identifying porn clones, you are now reading this (NSFW!): Snatchly is a ‘Pinterest for porn’. → Read More
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