1000Memories, the startup behind the ShoeBox iPhone application, which lets you “scan” old photographs and post them online using your mobile phone’s camera, is now introducing a new feature to help you better organize your digital collections. The feature is called, not surprisingly, “Shoeboxes,” and it’s meant to become the digital equivalent of the actual shoeboxes you have stuffed with photos sitting in your closets.
But scanning in a shoebox’s worth of photographs using an iPhone’s camera would be highly inefficient, of course. To help speed things up, 1000Memories is also announcing a partnership with ScanCafe, allowing you to ship off your photos for offsite digitization. → Read More
As Facebook has continued its rapid rise, one thing it has not been able to shake off are questions over how it deals with user data and privacy. That issue is getting revisited again today in Europe, where a consumer rights group says that Facebook has missed a deadline, set by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, to make a number of changes to comply with European data protection laws. That group is now encouraging consumers to take the fight to the next level and make formal complaints to the European Commission over the issue.
But TechCrunch understands that Facebook, whose international headquarters are located in Ireland, is working on changes that will be implemented in time for a later deadline of July 2012. → Read More
Back in the olden days of gaming, it was either feast or famine. You had simple, kiddie stuff like Super Mario Brothers or you had Flight Simulator, a game that included a manual thicker than the Chicago phone book. But what about the casual, adult gamer who wanted a fun adventure involving a little risque ribaldry? Bupkus.
Until Leisure Suit Larry from Sierra came along. And Leisure Suit Larry is coming along again. → Read More
White label gamification platform BigDoor has raised $5 million in new funding led by existing investor Foundry Group, bringing BigDoor’s total funding to $13 million.
BigDoor’s gamification platform essentially allows online publishers to add game mechanics to web interactions and engagements. BigDoor helps companies build game-like mechanics and loyalty programs into their sites or apps by enabling points, badges, levels, leaderboards, virtual currency and virtual goods.
→ Read More
One-hundred million views, 100 thousand subscribers, and brands still don’t have special tools for still customizing their YouTube channels. That changes today as social marketing platform Buddy Media begins letting its big brand clients deck out their YouTube channels with stylized video players and interactive apps. Twitter feeds, e-commerce storefronts, quizzes, linked banners, photo galleries and more can all be hosted on a channel.
The same way brands doubled down on Facebook Page marketing once they could host apps, I think we’re about to see a major uptick in the time and money they spend manicuring their YouTube channels. Too many captive eyeballs are going to waste.
→ Read More
Goodsie, a startup founded by the parent company of Flavors.me, wants to provide a simple, and relatively inexpensive way for any merchant to set up an e-commerce storefront. The platform, which launched last year, is getting an upgrade today with the release of a number of new tools that help retailers increase customer engagement and cross-platform engagement.
A new email marketing system allows retailers to send targeted campaigns to customers based on order history, purchase amount and geography. The feature gives retailers the ability to add personalization to the mix, but without having to spend massive amounts of money on data analysis. Via a drag-and-drop interface, merchants can create these email campaigns that integrate with Goodsie’s backend. Goodsie also provides a simple form for customers to sign-up for emails.
→ Read More
RR Donnelly isn’t a name you see very often in TechCrunch, but companies don’t survive for nearly 150 years without having one eye trained on the future. With 2011 revenues at an estimated $10.6 billion, the company is one of the world’s largest commercial printers. The printing giant has been stepping up its digital investments of late, and today announced that it has invested $2.5 million in Real Value Corporation, the makers of iPad shopping app, CoffeeTable. → Read More
An interesting new startup bubbling since it exhibited at TechCrunch 50 in the startup battlefield last year is Phonedeck. Effectively, it’s created the cloud-based desktop for the mobile phone. That means it can track your outgoing SMS content, but also log calls (though not content). The result? A sudden realisation of you who call, how long for and a lot of other data that was previously invisible. I recall MG Seigler writing that the phone book remained the last mile into social networking. Well Phonedeck might be the bridge across that last mille and it launches into public beta today from Google Play for Android handsets.
→ Read More
Come one, come all! Come build the iPhone 5!
In a conversation with TV Tokyo, a Foxconn recruiter mentions that the company is hiring more workers right now to prep for the iPhone 5 launch. “It seems like it will go on sale around June,” he said. The manufacturing giant is apparently looking to add 18,000 souls to its assembly lines to build something. → Read More
People love Dropbox and similar services, but companies — especially large enterprises in regulated industries — have an understandable aversion to file sync services: they allow company data on servers “out there” in the cloud, no longer under company control. ownCloud, essentially an open source, self-hosted Dropbox, has a unique advantage here as it’s strictly a software solution, not a storage provider. I mentioned ownCloud in passing when I wrote about OpenSUSE 12.1, but I’ve been keeping an eye on the project since. To make ownCloud even more attractive to businesses, a commercially supported version is being launched today at owncloud.com.
The ownCloud server does a bit more than just file storage and synchronization. It offers CalDAV and CardDAV services to synchronize calendars and address books with your mobile device. Work is also underway to make it aware of the file types being stored within it, and to provide meaningful actions based on those types: photo galleries, music playlists, and more. There’s a growing ownCloud app store to extend what the server can do. This is the power of open source: rather than relying on something like ifttt, you can have intelligent actions built right into the server you’re running. → Read More
It looks like Berlin, famously described by the city’s mayor as “poor but sexy”, is now quite a bit less poor in the realm of early stage tech startup financing. Earlybird Venture Capital has announced the $100m first close of its fourth venture fund. The target fund size is $200m.
The new fund will be dedicated to early-stage investments in “disruptive global consumer and enterprise Internet and technology businesses originating from Europe, with an emphasis on German-speaking countries.” Much of that innovation is coming out of Berlin right now, which has become a hotbed for startups and a talent pool for locals, internationals and the highly-prized engineering talent close by in Eastern and Central Europe.
→ Read More
Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are becoming increasingly strong marketing platforms, and, eventually, we should start to see more metrics that show how effective all those likes, shares and RT’s really are for businesses. (There are still precious few.)
One company that’s gotten an early start on that is Eventbrite, the online ticketing site, which today publishes some numbers that point to which social networks are giving it the best returns across its operations in the U.S. and UK. → Read More
When social networking companies myYearbook and Quepasa merged last year, myYearbook CEO Geoff Cook told employees that his goal was to “build an enduring, global brand for meeting new people.” That’s still the plan, but the company is announcing that it will build that brand under a new name — MeetMe.
Cook (who’s now COO) says both the myYearbook and Quepasa names don’t quite capture the current vision. myYearbook started out as a social working site for high schoolers, and even though it evolved into more of a social discovery service — one that’s increasingly mobile — the name still reflected its early roots. Meanwhile, Quepasa, which tries to do something similar for a Latin American audience, has a name suggesting a regional social network. → Read More
A new startup, YouDazzle, is taking on the file sharing space today with the launch of its cloud-based collaboration, storage and online meeting platform. The company has also announced a round of seed funding from Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social+Capital Partnership, and other undisclosed angels.
The cloud based SaaS allows businesses to organize project or deal related files in a central online repository that customers or colleagues can access from anywhere and from any device; share large files that are too large to send via email; and conduct screen sharing and web meetings via YouDazzle. → Read More
Eighteen months ago, it looked like the location wars were over. Foursquare had just closed a $20 million Series B round and rivals like Gowalla, Loopt and Brightkite weren’t having the same buzz or traction. Meanwhile, Christian Wiklund’s company Skout was down to a skeleton crew of three people after burning much of the $4.6 million it had raised since being founded in 2007.
“We were close to going under. We had no traction,” Wiklund said. “But we were really stubborn and there was no way we were going to let that happen.”
A first-time entrepreneur, Wiklund and his co-founder Niklas Lindstrom put their heads down. In 2009, they changed the app to focus on a new demographic: young people who wanted to meet strangers and singles who wanted to flirt. → Read More
This is a guest post by Monty Munford.
Last week I found myself in a sports bar in London’s West End. I was standing next to a couple being interviewed by Middle Eastern TV news channel Al-Jazeera who were giving their (inane, alas) views on a football match between two teams from Liverpool.
This experience was far removed from the one I’d had two hours previously when in the neighbouring cinema I had attended the UK première of “The Price of Kings: Yasser Arafat”, a film about the life of the Palestinian leader.
This juxtaposition is typical of a ‘proper’ night out in London, the new melting pot of Europe, but it had happened not because of any random connection or because I liked football. The invitation for the première was down to my alleged influence on social media and had come from PeerIndex and its new PeerPerks marketing service. → Read More
Dropcam is back with its second and most advanced security camera. Introduced back at CES 2012, the Dropcam HD is finally ready to ship and delivered within 5-7 business days. It’s quite a good bargin, too.
Not much has changed since we first looked at the unit in early January. This model does 30 fps, night vision, two-way audio and 16x the resolution as the original Dropcam Echo. The live video is accessible for free through a cloud service and where for $9.99 a month Dropcam also offers a DVR functionality. At $149 it’s priced very aggressively against other products with a smaller feature set. → Read More
When we interviewed Ray Anderson, the CEO of mobile payments company Bango last month and asked him when we would see one of its key customers, Amazon, roll out its own mobile payment service, his cool answer was “in due course.” A report out today from Bloomberg points to the company getting warmer on the idea.
Bloomberg says that app publishers have been trialling Amazon’s payment service for around the last month. The service would cover both one-off purchases as well as subscriptions through apps. And, like Google and Apple, Amazon plans to take a 30 percent commission on payments made using the platform. → Read More
More developments for Pinterest co-founder Paul Sciarra, who we reported yesterday was leaving Pinterest as Ben Silbermann officially took helm as CEO. Sciarra is going VC and joining Andreessen Horowitz as entrepreneur-in-residence.
The move follows the bigger trend of startup execs/founders getting snapped up by the VC firms, to help them get a bit smarter in how they work with their portfolio companies. Just yesterday, First Round Capital hired Scribd’s Jack Leidlein as head of talent. → Read More
Pop quiz! How much is spent on making Television shows in the US annually? It’s $300 billion or there-abouts. That’s a lot of video. Petabytes of data and more. Next question! How are all those shows edited and produced? Well, it’s almost all put though big-ass editing suites and in-office servers from the likes of Avid. Lastly, how many tech startups have gone after this TV market? No, I’m not taking about Brightcove and your little video podcast. I mean one that goes after Avid and that TV industry. Answer: None. Why? It’s just very, very tough. But now one has.
Aframe, the SaaS/cloud video production platform which has been bubbling under in Europe since 2010, has today raised a new $7 million Series A round of funding led by Octopus Investments and Eden Ventures, with participation by existing investor, Northstar Ventures. This is a large Series A in European terms, but one which also sees Aframe launching into North America with operations in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. Yes, folks, these guys are taking on the television production world with all guns blazing, already working with companies such as the BBC and MTV.
→ Read More
San Francisco, CA
