Later tonight, 60 Minutes will be broadcasting an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and VP Product Chris Cox, where they’ll debut a new Profile Page in front of millions of viewers. It’s a big deal given how core profiles are to the social network, and we’ve got the full rundown on what’s new and what’s changing. Read on.
There are two big themes to the revamped design: a bigger emphasis on keeping things visually interesting, and streamlining the design to make it easier to find information people actually care about. Facebook Product Manager Peter Deng explains that on the old profiles, some of the most popular features and information has been a pain to find — the ‘View more photos’ link, for example, is immensely popular, but it’s been nestled between far less important links for years. → Read More
Twitter late last week filed a UDRP complaint, notably its first ever since the company was founded, in an effort to obtain ownership over the (currently parked) domain name twittersearch.com – as you can see here.
Obviously, Twitter is right to do this, since the domain is likely to cause some confusion, although we should note Twitter hasn’t managed to secure a trademark for the term ‘twitter’ in the United States so far, despite multiple attempts. → Read More
Even though Amazon and Paypal have severed their relationships with the controversial to say the least WikiLeaks, the @WikiLeaks Twitter account is still holding strong. Some are wondering why Twitter has as of yet to cut ties with the service after this week’s leak of 251,287 diplomatic cables, which pissed some high powered people off to put it lightly. → Read More
Earlier today we broke the news that Skype was ramping up in preparation for new web-based products — a big shift for the company, which has historically offered its extremely popular service via native desktop clients.
Now we’ve heard more details from one source about what this new service may entail. We’re still working to firm up the specifics, but here’s what we’ve gathered so far:
According to our source, Skype is hoping to launch its web-based service in the first quarter of next year. The launch will likely include integrations on multiple partner sites — Skype is gunning for some big partners, and we hear that LinkedIn has been in discussions about a possible integration (LinkedIn declined to comment). → Read More
Comcast doesn’t care about the iPad but that’s because they are acquiring NBC which is paid by Microsoft to not care. They released an iPad app that lets me control my DVRs but doesn’t let me watch them. I can get NBC shows on my iPad by renting them from iTunes, so I don’t blame NBC, just Comcast. The FCC is toothless, Barnes & Noble gives me no reason whatsoever to leave them even a pity tip as I go to the Kindle and iBooks stores to download iPad product, and Adobe…. Ooyala will fix the problem, but Adobe is the problem.
As the guy said in the old movie, what we have here is a failure to communicate. What part of yes fails to penetrate the minds of those who see video as the next bubble? Yes, we want video, we want it streamed, we want access to it even if we never stream it because then we can delete it off of our iTunes server to free up enough OS space to upgrade to the next version of the infrastructure. The Chicken Littles announcing that this streaming thing is gonna use up all the Cloud’s free space have always and continue to be wrong. → Read More
If you haven’t already picked up on it here, here and here, Facebook has replaced the nightclub as the de riguer setting for foreign music videos. Much like Gergana’s opus “Facebook,” Swiss DJ David May revolves the entire narrative of his “Facebook Love” video around meeting and courting a girl on, what else, Facebook. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang went skinnydipping in the politics and technology of the Streaming Era. Kevin Marks took on the technical discussion, suggesting there is really no difference between downloading and streaming. Of course, he’s absolutely correct. What there is a difference is between the content cartel getting a fivespot per view and a buck a view or a penny a view if you’re one of those guys who are streaming NetFlix endlessly at 8 bucks a month. That would be me, if in fact there was any interesting product on NetFlix after Comcast gets through suing them into oblivion. I got your Net Neutrality right here, pal.
Andrew Keen objects to my constant use of the term “cartel”, accusing me of being old as do a stream of Tweets in the chat room. Of course I’m old, enough to know better; why would I still be using FriendFeed? CrunchGear editor John Biggs makes his Gang debut from his Brooklyn lair, hoping that everything will soon come into his broadband connection so he can avoid risking his life going to the movies. And Robert Scoble couldn’t be happier driving around the Bay Area listening to streamcasts of his favorite startups. As he says, we’re just waiting for Hollywood to name its price so we can get it when and where we want it. If Neil Young can have an iPad app, then anything is possible.
Video Ahead → Read More
As we’re all well aware, Facebook doesn’t offer an iPad app. Well, maybe we’re not all so aware of that. Because Friendly, an unofficial app made by Oecoway, has been a massive hit on the platform. In fact, it has over 500,000 active users, co-founder Cyril Moutran tells us. And that’s pretty amazing considering that they have been charging for the app. But you can probably expect that number to explode even further, as they’ve decided to make the app free.
To be clear, there will still be a $0.99 version of Friendly, but the only difference from the new free version is that it won’t have ads. Undoubtedly, most users won’t care about that and will opt for the free version. And the app will rack up even more downloads because 1) again, Facebook doesn’t have an official app and 2) Friendly is a very solid way to use Facebook on the device. → Read More
Part of the TRON press event included an advance screening of TRON: Legacy. We’ve been under embargo not to review the movie, but someone broke the embargo, so we are no longer going to keep it secret.
If you do not like movie spoilers, do not click to read more and do not read on, because I’m going to tell you what I think about the movie and I’m going to include some information about it that you might not want to know. I’m not going to give away major plots, because I hate that, but I’m going to go into some of my thoughts on the movie. If you are curious about seeing TRON and don’t mind a tidbit of information, read on. → Read More
Since we broke the news a couple days ago that Google’s secret social project, formerly known as “Emerald Sea“, is now being called “Google +1″, we’ve gotten more confirmation about the naming. This includes people more confident that this could well be the name Google ends up going with. We’ve also heard a couple other new interesting tidbits about the project.
The first is that Google may be testing an iPhone app for +1, which would presumably launch alongside the web variation of the service. One source reports seeing a Google employee’s iPhone with an app called “Loop” on it. This was apparently Google’s social project in native app form. The source says that it looked similar to Facebook and had large portions that were still in development. → Read More
Flashcards for toddlers is a huge business. Ok, I actually have no idea how big of a business it is. But I know parents think they’re an important part of the development of their child, and I have witnessed that toddlers will actually tolerate them for short periods of time. The direct feedback loop is key.
All of this stuff is moving to touch devices, obviously. Children love them, and get how to use them immediately.
Anyhow, interesting data from iTot Apps, the creator of a popular flashcard app for toddlers call, aptly, Toddler Flashcards. The company, by the way, was founded as a hobby by iLike cofounder Hadi Partovi and and Nat Brown, the ex-CTO of iLike. → Read More
Tim Kendall, Facebook’s Director of Monetization, has left the company. This is particularly noteworthy because Kendall first joined Facebook nearly five years ago, in June 2006. He architected all of the company’s early monetization strategies, although in recent years there have been a handful of high level hires, mostly from Google, that have come in as peers or above him.
One of those more recent hires, David Fischer, sent an email out announcing his departure, saying ” it is safe to say we would not be where we are today without Tim:” → Read More
As Skype prepares for an IPO in the next year, the VoIP company has been looking for new ways to expand its business both in terms of revenue and product development. One avenue the company is exploring to bring in more revenue is through enterprise offerings, via B2C and B2B offerings. However, it looks like Skype will be moving its VoIP offerings to the cloud.
We spotted these job postings on Skype’s website, indicating that the company is looking to build a team of cloud and web technology engineers. According to the postings, these staff members will “build an infrastructure capable of supporting hundreds of millions of users.” The products, will deliver “voice, vide → Read More
SkyGrid, a startup that offers a powerful business news aggregator, is bringing its popular application to Android devices today.
SkyGrid’s app allows you to add filters to news streams, with the aim of giving you the most important news right as it’s happening. Using the startup’s patented algorithm, Information Velocity; SkyGrid measures what news is spreading the fastest across the world, and brings that content directly to its apps. → Read More
Ask a child if there is a shortage of ice cream in the world, and no doubt, the response will be an emphatic yes—there certainly is. And ask a tech CEO if there is a shortage of engineers, and you will get the exact same answer.
That’s the story I used to tell, based on my research on engineering graduation rates and outsourcing trends. In 2005, my team shattered the myths about India and China graduating 12 times the numbers of engineers as the U.S. (we found that the U.S. graduated more than India did in 2004, and the quality of Indian and Chinese graduates was not comparable to that of American schools). And our survey of 78 executives from companies that Lou Dobbs (remember him?) harangued for “Exporting America” revealed that they weren’t going offshore because of shortages of U.S. talent or deficiencies in the skills of Americans, but because it was cheaper and these companies needed to be closer to growth markets.
The argument that I made, and that the opponents of skilled immigration also make, is that if there was, indeed, a labor shortage, then engineering salaries would be rising and companies would be paying huge bonuses to attract and retain talent. This wasn’t the case a few years ago. But with Google giving 10% pay hikes to all of its employees and offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in retention bonuses, this appears to be happening today. In Silicon Valley, there seems to be a talent crunch: most startups, venture capitalists, and big company executives say it is very hard it is to hire the right talent; they claim that wages are rising.
But national unemployment rates are hovering around 10%, and tens-of-thousands of highly experienced computer programmers and technical specialists can’t find work. How can this be? → Read More
Ok, I flat out love these auctions that SecondMarket are holding for privately held Facebook shares. Last week the first one closed, and $40 million of stock changed hands at $20.76 per share, valuing the company at roughly $50 billion.
This week’s auction has now closed. Only 475,000 shares moved, compared to 1.9 million last week. The auction closing price edged up 1.2% to $21.01, about $10 million worth of stock total.
Stay tuned for next week’s auction. What do you think the closing price will be? Closest guess gets a TechCrunch tshirt. → Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt finalist CheckPoints is a mobile shopping rewards app that lets consumers choose their own rewards. Despite not being available for OS3 users until recently, CheckPoints is currently the fastest growing mobile shopping application (in the same space as Shopkick and Barcode Hero), amassing its first 100K users in one month and its last 100K users in the past two weeks.
The app is free to download and use, and lets shoppers earn CheckPoints by checking into over a million participating locations and scanning the barcodes of a number of featured products including Belkin, Tyson, Energizer, Kmart and more. You can redeem CheckPoints for prizes like cash, gift cards, airline miles and gadgets. → Read More
Why don’t more big Web companies come out of Europe? According to European investor Klaus Hommels, it’s not the usual excuses we hear like un-start-up-friendly labor laws or a culture against taking business risk. It’s that the European Union is just too fragmented of a market no matter what continent boosters would have us believe. Hommels explains in the video below– realizing full-well he’s another German likely getting some hate mail from our readers.
While I had Hommels on Skype, which he invested in, I had to ask him about his other notorious Swedish investment, Spotify. Rumors are swirling for the countless time in last two years that the company has finally gotten the labels on board and a US launch is imminent. I’ll believe it when I see it, but kudos to them if they’ve finally pulled it. → Read More
Google’s much-rumored acquisition of Groupon is off, we’ve confirmed with a source with knowledge of the deal. The news was reported earlier by Chicago Breaking Business, and we’ve verified that the deal is indeed off.
The two companies have been in serious negotiations for at least the last week, with reports stating that Google was bidding as much as $6 billion for the red-hot local deals company.
Our source has also verified that Groupon’s annual revenues are now at a $2 billion run rate, which is much higher than the figures that had previously been circulating (this number was reported by AllThingsD a few minutes ago). The $2B figure is the total value of Groupons sold — half of the cost of the Groupon goes back to the merchant. → Read More
