Jason Kincaid currently works as a writer at TechCrunch.
He grew up in Danville, California and later relocated to UCLA in Los Angeles, California, where he studied biology with a minor in ‘Society and Genetics’.
You can reach him at jkincaidtc@gmail.com (he has other addresses too, so don’t worry if you have a different one).
Last year, Dropbox raised a whopping $250 million funding round at a valuation in the ballpark of $4 billion. The raise had been rumored for months so it didn’t come as a huge surprise, but it still raised plenty of eyebrows. Because while Dropbox is totally awesome (I use it every day), at this point people see it as a convenient way to sync their files between computers — which it already does pretty well. So what’s all the money for?
Today, we’re getting our first taste of what’s next, and what cofounder and CEO Drew Houston calls Dropbox’s mission to solve all of the “hidden problems” that people have with technology, many of which we’ve simply become accustomed to dealing with.
Their first solution to one of these hidden problems? Helping you keep all of your photos, from all of your devices, in one place. And to get things started, they’re launching a new version of their Desktop and Android clients that’ll automatically upload your photos to your Dropbox account. Snap a few photos on your phone, and, without having to hook up any wires, they’ll be on your computer within a minute or two. → Read More
For the last few years we’ve been tracking the growth of a service called Textfree, offered by San Jose-based startup Pinger. As the name implies, Textfree has a very attractive value proposition: you sign up, it gives you a free, real, telephone number, and you can send text messages and make phone calls with it free of charge — the service makes most of its money by displaying ads alongside the texts.
It’s also massively popular: last month alone, users sent and received a total of 2 billion text messages, and it’s one of the most downloaded iOS apps of all time. Even more impressive is the fact that the vast majority of their efforts have been concentrated in the US alone — Pinger is preparing to sweep across Europe this year.
Pinger’s service is potentially disruptive to the telecom world, which is why it’s so notable that the company is now getting in bed with one of the biggest names in the business: it’s raised a $7.5 million funding round led by T Venture, the VC arm of international carrier giant Deutsche Telekom. → Read More
With stories of Terminator-esque Google glasses making headlines these days, you’d think a basic task like screen sharing would be something that’d be pretty well solved by now. But while there are many different ways to share your desktop (or some portion thereof) with your friends or coworkers, more often than not the process isn’t something you’d call easy.
It’s bad enough that many people (including me) often find themselves steering their peers around computers the old-fashioned way: voice instructions over the phone (“Okay, now look in the Dock, do you see the Settings button? The one with metal gears, right. Click that…”)
ScreenLeap, a new startup out of the latest Y Combinator batch, wants to make this process a lot less painful, so that next time you’re confronted with an issue that could be better dealt with via screen-share, you actually take advantage of it. → Read More
Groupon has just acquired Hyperpublic, a NYC-based startup that’s spent the last two years building technology related to geo-location and the layers of information — like deals and events — that live on top of it.
Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but CEO Jordan Cooper describes it as a “huge win for our team and our investors”. He adds that Groupon was after Hyperpublic’s technology — this isn’t a case of it acquiring the team alone.
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You’ll never forget your first time.
Huddled in a hallway three feet wide, arms reaching every which way for a cup or a beer or the microphone. It’s hot and it’s messy and it’s noisy and everyone is pushing against everyone else but it doesn’t matter because your best friend is at the front of it all belting Total Eclipse of the Heart (how did she just hit that note) — and the world outside is whirling by in a blur.
It’s incredible. And now the RVIP Karaoke RV is ready to take the country by storm.
Today, the people behind this legendary tradition are announcing that they’re turning their passion into a full-fledged company. The papers have been filed, they’re fully insured, and the RV fleet has doubled in size (to two — with more on the way). → Read More
Yesterday I reported on a bizarre incident I witnessed at Sundance last month: VEVO, the music portal owned by some of the biggest record labels in the US, had a pirated NFL playoff game playing on screens throughout its ‘PowerStation’ venue.
The incident was immensely hypocritical, given that VEVO is owned in part by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment (with EMI licensing its content to the service) — the same music labels that have made a habit of attacking consumers over alleged acts of piracy.
Now VEVO CEO Rio Caraeff has written a post to the VEVO blog, where he tries to explain what happend. In it, he writes that the game was accessed and streamed by a guest of the event without VEVO’s knowledge. → Read More
Over the last decade the major music labels — and their trade organization, the Recording Industry Association of America — have established a repeated pattern of attacking consumers in the name of squelching illegal file-sharing. Piracy, they claim, has been the industry’s undoing, accounting for an over 50% drop in sales since 1999 (the industry likes to discount the impact of legal per-song music downloads via services like iTunes, and the myriad other changes facilitated by the rise of high-speed Internet connections).
Their efforts to combat piracy are often draconian: threatening tens of thousands of people with lawsuits claiming obscenely high damages; attempting to coordinate their threats with consumers’ ISPs; and, most recently, supporting legislation like SOPA and PIPA that would undermine the fabric of the Internet. Hell, Universal once pulled down a 30 second YouTube video of a dancing baby because the baby had the audacity to dance to a Prince song.
Which is why my jaw dropped when I saw that VEVO, a property jointly owned by some of the biggest record labels in the world, was showing a pirated stream of an ESPN football game at its Sundance PowerStation venue last month — on no fewer than two televisions, and a pair of laptops. → Read More
If you have one of the few Android devices currently running Ice Cream Sandwich, then you’re going to love this post. The rest of you, including those of you on iOS, will have to gaze longingly for a while.
Because Chrome just landed on Android.
It’s faster. It syncs everything (provided you want it to). It has nifty transition effects and a more intuitive system for jumping between tabs. And it’s also loaded with potential.
Google’s Chrome browser, which has skyrocketed to popularity since its debut in 2008 and consistently gets top marks for being the fastest browser in town, has long been strangely absent from Android. To be clear, Android has always shipped with a browser of its own — and it actually shares much of the same codebase with Chrome, including the V8 JavaScript engine. But next to the real Chrome, it’s a clear wannabe. After using it for a day, I really have no intention of using the older browser again. → Read More
A few weeks ago we wrote about Backplane — a platform for creating interactive, highly visual communities — that counts Lady Gaga as one of its backers, along with plenty of the Valley’s most well-known investors.
Now the company is harnessing its star power to hold a unique (and potentially awesome) event at SXSW: the SXSW Managers Hack — a hackathon that will be judged by some of the most accomplished managers in the music industry, including: Scooter Braun, best known for facilitating Justin Bieber’s rise to fame; Jay Brown, President of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation; and Troy Carter, manager of Lady Gaga (Carter is also one of Backplane’s cofounders).
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It’s the Super Bowl season, when a host of services and apps debut just in time for the biggest television event of the year. And, if you’re a fan of Madden’s NFL Superstars (a web app that’s available through Facebook), then you’ll like this launch: the game is now available as a Pokki right here.
Pokki, for those that haven’t used it, is a platform that lets you install lightweight apps that live in your Windows Taskbar (a Mac version is on the way). Each app gets its own icon — click on it, and the app will pop open immediately, click away and it’ll hide itself, and when you click it again, it’ll pick up right where you left off.
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Earlier this afternoon Droid-Life noticed something strange: the Android developer devices page had been modified to remove the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, leading the site to question whether Google may have removed support for the device because of its spat with Verizon over Google Wallet. Which would stand to infuriate a lot of new Galaxy Nexus users (including myself), who are looking forward to receiving device updates directly from Google and not having to wait for Verizon to get around to pushing their own releases.
Thankfully, we’ve confirmed this isn’t the case: Google says it will indeed be updating the Verizon Galaxy Nexus in the future. → Read More
Earlier this week during the Crunchies we snagged the founders of Warby Parker for a backstage interview — which was fitting, as I’ve been wearing a pair of their specs myself (they seemed pleased by this).
Tune in to the video above for some details on the company’s ‘Buy A Pair, Give A Pair’ program, through which Warby Parker matches every purchase by donating a pair of glasses to people in need. And for those of you looking for an alternative to the hornrimmed classes, there’s good news: wireframe glasses are on the way (early spring can’t come soon enough).
Oh, and we also take a stab at what the founders do when people tell them they look like hipsters (given their response, you may want to hold off on doing that). → Read More
The wait is over: Facebook has just filed for its IPO.
Facebook is looking to raise $5 billion— and will mint hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of employees as millionaires in the process. You can find its S-1 embedded below, or right here.
Rumors of Facebook’s public offering have been swirling for years, and have long been routinely sidestepped by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg. The company has openly acknowledged that an IPO was indeed inevitable, but has avoided giving any sense of timing — “When we’re ready” has become a familiar mantra from Facebook executives.
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Artspace, an e-commerce startup that helps connect contemporary artists and galleries with potential customers, has raised a $2.5 million Series A funding round with participation from Felicis Ventures, Accelerator Ventures, Blue Equity LLC, and Metamorphic Ventures.
The round also includes a wide range of accomplished entrepreneurs. The full roster: Michael Yavonditte (Hashable, Quigo), David Rosenblatt (1stdibs.com, Doubleclick), Dave Morgan (Simulmedia), Seth Goldstein (turntable.fm), Thomas Stemberg (Founder/former CEO of Staples); Rob Selati (Madison Dearborn Capital Partners); Todd Simon (SVP of Omaha Steaks) and Peter Ricketts (former COO of Ameritrade). The company previously raised a $1.2 million seed round last spring.
Artspace is setting out to make contemporary art accessible to those of us who aren’t necessarily deeply immersed in the art world already — and to help connect artists and galleries with potential buyers. The site also allows art fairs to create a virtual representation of their fair, which helps expand the number of potential buyers beyond those who can attend an event in-person. → Read More
One of the most buzzed-about startups over the last few months has been Codecademy — a site that looks to make programming accessible to just about anyone, with a variety of interactive, web-based courses that have users writing their first lines of code within a few seconds. The site’s ‘Code Year’ program, which invites users to receive one programming lesson each week, racked up a whopping 100,000 signups in only 48 hours — and it even has the White House on board.
But, as anyone who has spent much time on the site can attest to, Codecademy has had one big problem: there just aren’t that many lessons available. And the ones that are on there sometimes seem to be moving too quickly, without many practice exercises to explore and reinforce what you’ve just learned.
Today, the company is launching a feature that will go a long way toward fixing that. Meet the Codecademy Course Creator. → Read More
Y Combinator has just announced the newest partner to join the prestigious firm: Geoff Ralston. Ralston’s previous credentials include founding Four11, which was acquired by Yahoo back in 1997 for $96 million and served as the foundation for Yahoo Mail. Ralston spent eight years at Yahoo, eventually becoming Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer. Several years after leaving Yahoo he was named CEO of Lala, before it was acquired by Apple in 2009.
Most recently he cofounded Imagine K12, a tech incubator for education-related startups, which presented at TechCrunch Disrupt SF (you can find the incubator’s first batch of companies here). → Read More
The Wall Street Journal has just reported that Facebook may file for its long-awaited IPO as soon as this Wednesday, but notes that the “timing is still being discussed”, according to an anonymous source. The article says that Facebook is eyeing a valuation between $75 and $100 billion as it raises up to $10 billion, which is in line with a previous WSJ report last November.
The article also reports that Morgan Stanley is currently the frontrunner to secure the top, “lead left” position in the filing, with Goldman Sachs playing a “significant role” as well. The news comes shortly after Facebook temporarily froze secondary trades on its shares, sparking speculation that the IPO filing may be imminent. → Read More
BeachMint — an ecommerce startup that lets customers subscribe to receive products hand-picked by celebrities each month — has quickly become one of the hottest companies in Los Angeles.
Today the company is announcing that it’s raised a $35 million funding round with some big-name investors: the round is being led by Accel Partners, with participation from Goldman Sachs, New World Ventures, NYC-based and Millennium Technology Value Partners, with existing investors participating as well. Accel’s Greg Waldorf will be joining BeachMint’s board. This brings BeachMint’s total funding to a whopping $75 million.
This is obviously a big raise, and it comes only seven months after the company raised $23.5 million at a rumored $150 million valuation. Why are they raising so much? The short answer: they’re growing like crazy and are planning to go international — and they’ll be fending off plenty of competition. → Read More
As a former resident of Los Angeles, New York’s public transportation system feels magical at times. Trains — underground trains — that go places you actually want to go. It’s a wonderful system. And I thank my stars that I live in an age when my smartphone can tell me how to use it.
Because for all its convenience, NYC’s subway system can feel a bit labyrinthine at times — particularly when there’s a planned service disruption (there’s always a planned service disruption). Thankfully I’m equipped with a well-crafted Android app called Embark NYC, which makes it easy to plot my subway route and get notified about any potential delays.
Embark NYC (which was formerly called Ride NYC) was built by a company called Pandav, which is also responsible for the popular, and similarly polished app iBART. And today, the company has some big news: it’s changing its name to Embark, and it’s releasing some data that gives an idea as to just how popular it’s gotten. Namely, that it’s now plotted a total of 20 million trips since its first app launched ten months ago, and that users are plotting an additional two million trips per month.
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Warby Parker — the New York-based startup that sells prescription, designer glasses for a relatively modest $95 a pop — has just released its annual year in review, outlining some key stats and factoids from the past twelve months. My favorite section: most popular misspellings people search for when they’re trying to find the site, with the leaders including “Worvey Parkers” and “Warmby Parker” (Warmby? Really?).
Oh, and there’s some more serious stuff too.
San Francisco, CA
