Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to becoming a professional blogger, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.
One of the more interesting projects to emerge from Evernote’s 2013 Devcup hackathon is called Postach.io, a new blogging platform that turns your Evernote notebook into a content management system. Input Logic, the Vancouver-based company behind the now just four-week-old service, has already caught the attention of local investors, as well as Evernote, who met with the team to discuss possible… → Read More
Tripshare, an iPad application for travel planning, is joining a crowded space. But its CEO knows a little something about the industry – Bob Dana was the former employee No. 1 and first CFO of Virgin America. He once wrote the business plan and feasibility study for Sir Richard Branson in 2003. And now he’s doing a travel startup. Dana tells us the inspiration for Tripshare was based… → Read More
How do you market a hot new TV show without the benefit of commercial space that you can fill with network promos? Just ask Netflix. The company has come up with a number of clever marketing stunts to get the word out about the upcoming premiere of Arrested Development ranging from Easter eggs on Netflix.com to this month’s live frozen banana stand in New York, which was visited by hundreds. It… → Read More
Yahoo and Twitter have partnered to bring tweets directly into Yahoo homepage’s newsfeed on web and mobile, the company announced this morning. The move follows the February relaunch of the front page. At the time, the company debuted a redesigned site with an increased emphasis on personalization, as well as a more modern design. → Read More
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s new and mysterious startup called Jelly still isn’t saying what it’s up to, but it has announced funding. According to details posted to the official company blog this morning, the team has raised a Series A from a notable lineup of investors in a round led by Spark Capital, with additional investment from SV Angel, and a group of angels that includes Square CEO … → Read More
Google sadly scrapped its plans to introduce a plastic “universal” credit card that works at point-of-sale as a way to use its Google Wallet service out in the real world, but the company has not given up on its NFC-powered payments solution just yet. The company announced Wednesday evening the Google Wallet app now works on more phones: the Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Note II and HTC One… → Read More
Flying under the radar amid a flurry of announcements from today’s Google I/O developer conference is the bigger news of how Google is stepping up its efforts to compete with online payment giants, such as PayPal. It plans to do so with a revamped checkout process for the web, mobile web, within mobile applications running on Android, and more.
It’s a proposed death to PayPal by a thousand… → Read More
TechStars, the popular startup accelerator with locations in Boston, Boulder, New York, Seattle, London, and more, has today announced an expansion to Austin, Texas – a city TechStars founder and CEO David Cohen refers to as the “natural next stop for us” in this morning’s announcement about the new location. The program will launch its first program this August, and is… → Read More
Google seems determined to leak all the exciting Google I/O news ahead of the official event. We’ve already seen the new Google Maps go live briefly before being pulled down, are hearing reports of a new music streaming service, and now there’s been confirmation that the next version of Android appears to be Android 4.3. → Read More
Fresh off its $2 million in Series A funding, in-app mobile payments platform ZooZ is announcing a new product today: in-ad payments. Yes, that’s right, “ad” not “app.” The big idea here is to streamline the checkout process for consumers by addressing some of the challenges with e-commerce on mobile’s small screen, and now connecting that process to mobile… → Read More
Cydia, a platform commonly thought of as the alternative app store for jailbroken iPhones and iPads, has just today arrived on Android of all places. Though Android is by its nature more open and customizable than Apple’s locked-down iOS, it now has a growing collection of apps designed for power users who root their devices – a process that’s similar in spirit to the iOS jailbreak. Cydia for… → Read More
Walmart, via its Silicon Valley innovation lab @WalmartLabs, today announced the acquisition of two startups: cloud computing newcomer OneOps and the software development shop Tasty Labs, from Delicious founder Joshua Schachter. Tasty Labs offered two services Jig.com and Human.io – both domains which are now redirecting to Walmart’s acquisition announcement, along with that of… → Read More
Rovio Entertainment, maker of the popular line of “Angry Birds” games, announced today that its expanding its business to include third-party titles, which it will publish, distribute and market to consumers. The new program is being called “Rovio Stars,” and makes available the company’s expertise as well as its marketing teams to other publishers. The first title to… → Read More
Parents of preschoolers can finally let go of “iPad guilt” – the term that refers to that terrible feeling you get when you use the iPad as babysitter. Today, a company called Kidaptive is launching one of the most comprehensive feedback systems for parents to date, allowing them to get a hand of their child’s learning and development by simply handing over the iPad and letting their child play. → Read More
A handwritten note is becoming a lost art in the age of email, Facebook, SMS, and more messaging apps than you can count. But if anything, that rarity has only led to increase its value and perceived thoughtfulness, even as our penmanship skills decline. Today, a startup called Postable is bringing back the “handwritten” note with a service that allows you to type in handwriting fonts, then print… → Read More
Lucky Sort, a Portland, Oregon-based startup behind a visualization and navigation engine called TopicWatch that helped to discover patterns in live data streams, has been acquired by Twitter. Terms of the deal were not immediately available, but the company has announced via its website that it will be shuttering its service in the coming months, and several members of the team will now be… → Read More
In the interest of protecting children, a new iOS application called AppCertain has debuted a monitoring application aimed at parents. The app, whose goal is to alert parents about the nature of the applications their kids are downloading, involves the use of a “configuration profile” – special software Apple originally intended for enterprise use, not consumer-facing apps sold… → Read More
Q: Why does a to do list application need $3.5 million in funding? A: Because it’s becoming more than a simple to do app. Today, Any.DO one of the more popular to do list applications for web and mobile, announced a seed round of funding led by existing investor Genesis Partners, with participation from both current and new investors Innovation Endeavors (Eric Schmidt’s fund), Joe… → Read More
A number of startups have been trying their hand at subscription-based children’s books services, or something like a “Netflix for kids’ books,” so to speak. Today, another entry called Zoobean joins the flock, with the debut of its own handpicked catalog which parents can either subscribe to, or choose to just shop online like a standard e-commerce website. The company was… → Read More
Facebook Home, the app which CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted as the “next version of Facebook,” has not been an immediate hit. Its Google Play rankings have been dropping steadily after the launch buzz wore off, according to new data from top app store analytics firms. Despite having an active user base of over a billion on the social network itself, the company announced on Thursday that… → Read More
Facebook is not the only company to invest in development of products that take better advantage of the Android homescreen. South Korean messaging app KakaoTalk also recently announced its intentions to release a rival Android launcher. And now, Highland Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and others have invested $1.8 million into Aviate, an ex-Googler backed intelligent homescreen for Android… → Read More
Serial entrepreneur with too many ideas rattling around in your head? Then you’re going to like this one: a new mobile app called Elevatr will help you keep track of your inspirations, as well as develop a business model, in order to turn your passing thoughts into plans actually worth pursuing some day.
The beautifully designed app was dreamt up by New York-based David Spiro, a recent college… → Read More
Tweetwall, a Twitter display provider for events (you know, for “tweet walls”), which has been used by customers including CNN, PayPal, Yahoo, Intel, eBay, Microsoft, the Obama campaign, Sprint, and more, is today launching a revamped version of its service. The updated version of Tweetwall has been rebuilt from the ground up, and is also accompanied by a new iPad application offering… → Read More
Today is just jam-packed full of acquisition-shutdowns. Just hours ago, word broke that Yahoo! had acquired both MileWise and GoPollGo, with plans to discontinue both. Next up on the happy-now-sad-users-later train: Clipboard, the web clipping service we covered previously here.
According to an email to its users, Clipboard has been acquired by Salesforce and will be shutdown in a bit over a… → Read More
Google announced today an expansion of its online storage efforts with the release of a “Save to Drive” button that can be added to any website, allowing visitors to click and save files hosted on the site to their personal Google Drive accounts. The button is already being used by Bigstock, Delta Dental, Fotolia, O’Reilly, Outbox and Zen Payroll, Google notes. → Read More
Though Foursquare is now busy trying to take on Yelp, one of its more rewarding, but personal, use cases (now that the fervor around badges and mayorships has died down), is its ability to add insight and data around your check-ins. Often after registering your location, the app rewards you with a little encouragement or commentary via a pop-up message. Today, the service is making these little… → Read More
Dish.fm, the recently relaunched restaurant recommendation app which focuses on the best menu items, as opposed to overall venue reviews, is today rolling out an update which expands the service into more of a dish search engine than local utility. The company had previously allowed you to see the best dishes nearby and compare dishes inside a restaurant, but now the app also helps you find the… → Read More
Since the launch of personalized magazines this March, social magazine maker Flipboard has added 6 million new users to its platform, bringing its total number of users to 56 million – and that’s before the feature even arrived on Android, which now comprises roughly half of Flipboard’s user base. Today, that changes as the personalized magazine option arrives on Android phones… → Read More
Ovuline, the big data-driven fertility tracker backed by $1.4 million in funding from Lightbank, Launch Capital and others, is today launching an upgraded version of its Smart Fertility product which now more accurately predicts ovulation, offering real-time feedback plus integration with “quantified self” devices like the FitBit and Withings. Company co-founder and CEO Paris Wallace… → Read More
Quidsi, the Amazon-owned parent company to a collection of single-word, e-commerce domains, including Diapers.com, Soap.com, Wag.com, Yoyo.com, and more, is today launching a new membership program called Familyhood Plus. The program offers consumers free two-day shipping with no minimum purchases and other exclusive deals.
Prior to today, Quidsi sites would only promise free two-day shipping… → Read More
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