Ryan has spent more than five years covering business, technology, and telecom-related subjects for a variety of publications based in New York and San Francisco. Ryan currently works as a writer for TechCrunch.
Every now and then I see something so ridiculously stupid, it’s just begging to be called out. That’s the case with this promotional video from the kind folks at Rippln, which is more or less a two-minute case study in how not to pitch your soon-to-be ultra-viral app to the general public, or the press, or potential employees or investors. → Read More
Netflix reported positive first-quarter numbers, including revenues of $1.02 billion during the first three months of the year. The company also announced that it added 2 million domestic in the quarter, bringing the total number of subscribers to 29.2 million. → Read More
Grooveshark has created a way for its users to create there own live streaming playlists, enabling them to share their favorite music, complete with their own personal interruptions. The Grooveshark Broadcast feature, which becomes available later this week, basically enables anyone to become an online music DJ, creating live and on-demand broadcasts that anyone can listen to. → Read More
Online commerce still isn’t as easy as it should be. That’s because many times, consumers find something they want while browsing a publisher site online, but then have to search for and buy it elsewhere. Well, that’s a process that Los Angeles-based startup Mulu wants to change, with an ad plugin that allows users to buy the products they’re reading about directly on the page. → Read More
Vidyo has raised yet another round of funding, this time $17 million. That brings total funding to $116 million, with the financing coming from inside and outside investors. Triangle Peak Partners was the lead new investor in the round, joining previous investors such as Juniper Networks, QuestMark Partners, Menlo Ventures, Rho Capital Partners, Star Ventures, and Four Rivers Group. → Read More
Mobile personal assistant apps are all the rage these days. First there was Google Now for Android, but over the last several weeks we’ve seen a whole bunch of new apps pop up — apps like Donna, Osito, and Sherpa — all of which seek to make our lives easier by simplifying how we organize our meetings, travel, and other personal information. With that in mind, I sat down with my… → Read More
If you’re a big fan of bikes and Airbnb-type sharing economy startups like me, you might have been disappointed to learn that Liquid (née Spinlister), the peer-to-peer bike rental startup, was shut down a few months ago. The service, which launched in New York City last Spring, had just opened up to the general public a few months before being put on hiatus. → Read More
Launched last June, Beachfront Media‘s Beachfront Builder platform was designed to allow video producers to quickly roll out apps across a number of devices. Those apps would have custom skins and could even serve ads, with videos streamed out either via the YouTube API or by connecting to creator’s own content management system. → Read More
I’ve already told you about Donna, the new mobile personal assistant from Incredible Labs. But if you haven’t actually had a chance to play with the app yourself, it’s difficult to explain how it’s different from the growing list of smart calendar and assistant apps now on the market. → Read More
YouTube has once again beaten Viacom in the long-running copyright case that the companies have spent the last several years fighting. This marks the second time U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton has taken YouTube’s side in the case, agreeing that the streaming video provider was protected by “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. → Read More
The team behind mobile video app Socialcam just keeps on trucking. The company, which is now part of Autodesk, is releasing a new version of its app today, adding a bunch of features that users have asked for, like expanded profile pages, as well as the ability to switch back and forth between front- and rear-facing cameras and hashtags and @ mentions that actually do stuff. It’s been nearly… → Read More
Taxi e-hail startup Hailo is looking to expand the number of cities that it serves, and could soon add San Francisco and Washington, D.C. to that list. Based on a couple of job postings on the company’s website, the company is looking to hire city general managers for those two cities, signaling its plans to launch its app in even more new markets. → Read More
Zonoff just raised something like $3.8 million in Series A funding from Valhalla Partners and Grotech Ventures. It wants to act like the connective tissue between various smart devices and appliances and stuff like that. The idea is to make them “SMARTER TOGETHER” with its Zonoff Connected Home Platform, according to Zonoff CEO Mike Harris. → Read More
Streaming set-top box manufacturer Roku has hired a new CFO today, bringing in an executive who had cut his teeth at Logitech and eBay. Erik Bardman, former SVP of Finance and CFO of Logitech International, is joining the company as it seeks to expand globally and also work out more deals with cable and satellite providers. → Read More
Y Combinator-backed startup CrowdMed hopes to use the wisdom of the crowds to speed up and lower the cost of diagnosing rare medical conditions. By crowdsourcing medical data and applying some patented predictive technology, the company believes it can help users identify illnesses which had otherwise baffled medical professionals. → Read More
What do RelayRides customers do if they live in a place with no available cars listed? Starting today, users who find themselves in that predicament will be able to share their interest in renting a car on Facebook. The new feature, which RelayRides calls “Renting Social,” is designed to help increase supply in those markets. → Read More
Premium video extensions in HTML5 are opening the door for Netflix to embrace a more standards-based format for video playback, but it’s doing so cautiously. The reason for Netflix’s use of Silverlight in the first place is due to its need to provide DRM and ensure that its users aren’t copying its content or displaying it in places where they’re not authorized to. → Read More
Vtok goes beyond just enabling iOS users to send messages to their connections logged in to Gmail or Google Apps, with many of the features people love about the service. That means voice and video chat first and foremost, but it also includes a number of other features. → Read More
Finding a job sucks. There’s the process of finding something in a relevant field, then submitting resumes, doing phone interviews, doing in-person interviews, etc. Wowzer wants to make this easier with the ability to streamline the whole process with video. And now, through the magic of a new mobile app, hopes to make applying for a job even easier. → Read More
FlightCar is hoping to open for business in a number of new markets over the course of the rest of the year. To do that, FlightCar has raised a $5.5 million Series A round, with a number of high-profile investors such as General Catalyst, Softbank Capital, Airbnb founder and CEO Brian Chesky, as well as Ryan Seacrest’s Seacrest Global Group. → Read More
There’s a gold rush going on these days, or a Bitcoin rush, at least. Driven by the recent swings in the value of a Bitcoin, more and more people are learning about and becoming interested in the currency. While they could just buy Bitcoins at the current market rate, others are looking to try their luck at mining Bitcoins. And like prospectors who traveled west during the Gold Rush of the 19th… → Read More
In the coming weeks, the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission is expected to enter into its first trial of taxi e-hail apps. That’ll allow startups like Hailo that help users find nearby cabs through their mobile phones, without having to hail them from the street. At the same time, competition is coming from services like SideCar, which enables passengers to find rides from community drivers. → Read More
On-demand ride service Uber is more fully embracing ride sharing, making it clear in a policy paper this morning that it will offer up services from community drivers in markets in which competing services, like Lyft and SideCar, have gotten “tacit approval” from local regulators. → Read More
Don’t have a “custom-designed, one-of-a-kind bespoke app… to communicate and collaborate” with your assistant through? Hell, don’t even have a personal assistant? Well, that’s all about to change, thanks to a wonderful new mobile application called Donna. → Read More
Mobile content company Movile has over the last several years distributed content and applications for a primarily Latin American audience. But what happens when a mobile user isn’t connected to a wireless data network? To help solve this problem, Movile has introduced a pair of applications that will help users connect to free Wi-Fi networks. → Read More
Adobe has changed the way it sells technology used to enabled high-quality streaming services from TV networks and other video providers. With the launch of Adobe Primetime — previously know as Project Primetime — the technology company is providing a suite of tools for video delivery. And it’s signed up a couple of big new clients for the suite of products. → Read More
Netflix is quickly building a stable of its own original content, but those programs end up getting lumped in with all the movies and TV series that it’s licensed from other content providers. To combat this, Netflix is running landing pages on a wide range of devices to show off the new series that it’s investing in, with the next one being Eli Roth’s Hemlock Grove. → Read More
Last summer, the guys from Tracks.by launched Hipset as a discovery site for music aficionados. The idea was to provide a place for music fans to keep track of all the latest jams from their favorite artists. The team is still working on Hipset, but over the last several months they’ve morphed it into a YouTube network for musicians and celebrities. → Read More
Could Fox remove its broadcast signals and become available only as part of a cable subscription? That’s one possibility that News Corp. COO Chase Carey offered up as a business solution if it and other broadcasters lose their ongoing legal battle against streaming video provider Aereo. → Read More
Here at TechCrunch, we’re big fans of ZeroCater, the YC-backed startup which reduces the hassle of providing lunch to your employees. Until recently, ZeroCater was only available in the San Francisco Bay Area, but that’s changed, as the startup has just launched service in New York City. There, it hopes to capture customers in what is the largest corporate catering market in the United States. → Read More
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