Viber has made quite a name for itself as a global mobile first company, but today that all changes as the company breaks ground in the desktop space. That means that starting today, Viber’s 200 million+ users will have access to their Viber contacts from both mobile and desktop.
The rollout is part of a bigger push from Viber, including an update to its iOS, Android and BlackBerry apps to… → Read More
Kim Dotcom and his legal team are seizing the moment of a meeting of attorneys general from the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in Auckland to bring more attention to his legal fight with the U.S. government, which wants to extradite Dotcom from New Zealand and try him for copyright violations related to his now-defunct Megaupload venture. Robert Amsterdam, a high-profile lawyer known… → Read More
“im ddeleting the internet [sic]“: A telling re-blog from a teenaged girl on the blogging platform turned social networking site Tumblr, in a chain of re-postings that had her pondering Tumblr’s impact on her life twenty years from now, when her passing, immature thoughts become fodder for a discussion among her boss and colleagues at some imagined future workplace. → Read More
It wasn’t until widely respected economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff shared the Excel files behind their influential paper on the relationship between government debt and economic growth, that a very basic and consequential spreadsheet error was discovered.
Suddenly, a conclusion that policy makers around the world had seized on for years to justify steep spending cuts was thrown in… → Read More
Australian startup Tapestry, which makes an app for Android tablets to help seniors stay connected to family members, has raised $400,000 in new funding in the form of a grant from Commercialisation Australia — capital it will use to extend its wares to iOS (and beyond tablets), add additional community features, and gear up for a U.S. launch. → Read More
In the tangled web of digital social networks that we weave one thing is increasingly absent: a sense of mystery. We are so wrapped up in our digital social graphs there’s rarely room for gaps. The challenge now is about piecing together the endless jumble of data that’s being pushed at us. Instead of dreamers, we’re policemen sifting through a bottomless box of evidence. → Read More
Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected. Indeed, great things can come from this, and for many of its one billion users, Facebook isn’t just on the web — it is the web. It is where images, biographical data, and every speck of a connection to a person, place, or thing lives, both the dream of a doting family spread miles apart and a marketer close by. It is a place… → Read More
Investor Chamath Palihapitiya’s skeptical comments about the current wave of tech startups (comments that included a not-too-veiled dig at Snapchat), ended up fueling plenty of discussion at our Disrupt NY conference earlier this week. In fact, when I interviewed Sequoia Capital partner Aaref Hilaly backstage, Palihapitiya’s remarks provided a springboard for Hilaly’s take on messaging apps… → Read More
You’ve likely heard whispers of a company called Wander in the past year. They nabbed $1.2 million, launched out of TechStars, and have since gone relatively quiet. Until today. Today Wander is launching a mobile app called Days, which aims to change the way you think of photo-sharing on every basic level. To start, Days asks you to stop thinking of the moments that are… → Read More
BeTheDancer is Alex Greenburg’s name and handle on Instagram. He’s a good friend and a brilliant photographer, but because Instagram doesn’t require real names, I had a lot trouble using the app’s new tagging feature to point him out in my photos. Right now, Instagram’s 100 million users are discovering that while pseudoanonymity can be fun, it’s not very functional. → Read More
LinkedIn has just reported Q1 earnings of $324.7 million, up 72% year-on-year, and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.45, both soundly beating analysts’ estimates (via First Call) of $317 million and EPS of $0.31; as well as LinkedIn’s own guidance from last quarter, when it said it expected between $305 million and $310 million in revenues. Net income for Q1 was $22.6 million a big rise on the… → Read More
Today Instagram launches photo tagging, the feature that fueled Facebook’s early growth. New Instagram iOS and Android updates rolling out now let you tag any person or brand in your own photos, which then automatically show up in the “Photos Of Me” section of their profile. You get notified when you when you’re tagged, can require approvals before photos hit your profile, or detag yourself. → Read More
SocialWire, a startup building Facebook ads for retailers, has raised $1 million in “seed extension” funding. The company is also announcing that Chief Revenue Officer Bob Buch, a former exec at Aol and Digg, is taking on the role of CEO.
When I talked to Buch this morning, he acknowledged that when he tells people that he works in the advertising business, they usually respond, “Oh, I hate… → Read More
I’ve found that when people visit San Francisco, it’s not unusual to hear them ask something like: “No seriously, is there a coffee shop on every block in this city?” Yes, San Francisco likes coffee. So do a lot of cities. Busy people thrive on coffee, especially in the tech industry. In fact, some would even say that a substantial amount of coffee is an essential ingredient to success. → Read More
“Happier, healthier, more productive.” That was the goal of mobile app Astrid, and now Yahoo is taking up the mission as it’s just acquired the social productivity platform. Co-founded by a former Palantir engineer, Tim Su, AngelPad-backed Astrid says that it has four million users, who as of September 2012 logged 30 million plans on the platform. → Read More
Facebook says that there are no plans for now to add advertising to Instagram, even though advertisers are approaching them, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today during the company’s Q1 earnings call. But adding ads could end up stunting Instagram’s rapid growth. He said, more than once during the call, that Instagram is currently growing at a faster rate than FB did at the same age, and it now has 100… → Read More
Facebook app install ads were the star of Facebook’s earnings call today. Sheryl Sandberg said 3800 developers, including 40% of the top 100 iOS app developers, used the ads to drive over 25 million installs. Mark Zuckerberg meanwhile said, “We’re starting to see real revenue from selling mobile app installs.” → Read More
Almost one-third of Facebook’s advertising revenue is now coming from mobile platforms, according to the company’s latest earnings release. About $375 million of Facebook’s $1.25 billion in advertising revenue came from products like the company’s new mobile app install ads. That’s up from last quarter, when Facebook said it made 23 percent, or $305.9 million, from… → Read More
In Q4 of last year, Facebook’s mobile MAUs surpassed desktop for the first time in its history. That trend continued in Q1 2013 with 751M MAUs. This is what we learned with today’s release of Facebook’s Q1 results. Despite claims earlier this month, Facebook didn’t lose users, but gained 2M. Asia continues to be the largest area of user growth, according to the slides… → Read More
Facebook has just posted its earnings for the quarter that ended March 31, 2013. Facebook hit $1.46 billion in revenue up 38% from Q1 2012, beating Wall Street estimates of sales of $1.44 billion. Facebook reported earnings of $1.06 billion for the same quarter a year ago. Earnings per shared missed estimates, staying flat at $0.12 (analysts had expected earnings per share of $0.13. Net income… → Read More
Brian Pokorny, who recently rejoined SV Angel as a general partner, weighed in this afternoon on the future of a number of high-profile companies — Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo.
Pokorny was interviewed at Disrupt NY, where he was joined onstage by his partners David Lee and Ron Conway. When TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington asked them how they felt about Facebook and whether it was going… → Read More
How could a site for explaining rap lyrics make good on its $15 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz? Because it’s also a collaborative text-annotation platform that enterprises are asking for. Today at TechCrunch Disrupt, the Rap Genius founders told me they plan to monetize by building private installations of their service for big companies and government agencies. Biz Genius is coming. → Read More
Brewster launched late last year with a simple goal: Replace your tired old A-to-Z contact list with an address book that actually understands your relationships and, in turn, helps you become a better friend. For some of us, this feels like a hopeless pursuit. We’re overworked, stressed, have terrible breath, and just can’t seem to find enough hours in the day to better manage our personal… → Read More
Line, a free messaging app made by NHN Japan Corporation that’s competing with the likes of WhatsApp and Viber, has pushed past 150 million registered users globally, up from 100 million in January. Line launched back in summer 2011 in Asia, and is especially popular in Japan, but has been pushing outside its home region, expanding into the U.S., Europe and Latin America. → Read More
The founders of lyric website Rap Genius revealed today that they’re starting to move into annotating news content too, under the name News Genius.
They were onstage at Disrupt NY, where they gave a surreal, joke-y interview without too much detail about what News Genius actually is. Co-founder Mahbod Moghadam mostly told the audience to follow the Twitter account and asked, “When is Obama… → Read More
A victory for Facebook in its case against typosquatters — those who own domain names that are similar to those of a popular site, which they use to confuse people and potentially capitalize on that. The U.S. District Court for Northern California has ruled in favor of the social network in an action it took against several squatters, recommending the turnover of 105 domains and statutory damages… → Read More
MindMixer, a startup that helps organizations like the City of San Francisco gather ideas from their communities, has raised $4 million in Series B funding.
When the company announced its $1.9 million Series A last year, CEO Nick Bowden recalled his work in urban planning, when local governments and agencies would hold public meetings that no one attended. So MindMixer created tools for… → Read More
23snaps, one of a number of mobile apps that target parents who want to share photos, videos and updates of their children within a private social network, has flicked the monetization switch today. It’s launched an on-demand printing feature within the app to let users turn their uploaded photos into a physical printed product — both photo books and individual prints. → Read More
While some institutions of higher learning have grown skeptical of the MOOC phenomenon spreading through its ranks (and the startups responsible), you have to give Coursera credit for keeping its foot on the gas. In less than six months, the MOOC startup has taken meaningful steps towards monetization and toward becoming a legitimate MOOC university, adding career services, verified certificates… → Read More
Looks like Lockerz, the social commerce and photo sharing service, may be moving on to yet another chapter in its life. After laying off 30% of its Seattle HQ staff, closing down its San Diego office, and shutting down its Plixi photo sharing API earlier this year, the company is now launching a new fashion site, Ador. A tipster tells us that Lockerz is shutting down altogether and relaunching… → Read More
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