Hall, an AngelPad-backed business communications app which is taking on the likes of Yammer, Jive and Salesforce.com’s Chatter, is out now with new native applications for iOS and Mac. The company is also announcing some decent traction, with over 10,000 businesses signed up for the recently revamped service. → Read More
In this new episode of my Foundation video series, I talk with Zappos founder Tony Hsieh about entrepreneurship, fostering corporate culture, and his latest project to fuel a thriving tech community in Las Vegas. → Read More
In the most recent episode of my Foundation video series, I sat down with the founder of StyleSeat, Melody McCloskey. Melody shares how her frustration with finding a stylist inspired her to build the platform. She also talks through the challenges of reaching an audience who isn’t in front of a computer all day and how the web helps them grow their business and improve their client… → Read More
Twitter has hired another Google employee, and this time it’s someone with a heavy focus on business and sales. The Googler is Aliza Knox, who ran Business and Sales for Shopping, Offers and Wallet across Asia Pacific as Managing Director of Commerce. Knox has confirmed this with TechCrunch this evening. → Read More
The iPad mini hit store shelves today, and I got the chance to get one for myself. The device is a terrific consumer tablet, but it has a lot of potential to be an even more impressive player in retail, restaurant and industrial applications. The iPad mini’s big brother has done a good job of making headway in businesses and customer service, but the iPad mini has a strong chance to help drive… → Read More
According to Reuters, Yahoo! is actively closing down its Korean business and cutting around 200 jobs. We’ve reached out to Yahoo! for comment and confirmation and will update you as soon as we hear back.
This shutdown was already reported, and it was supposed to happen by “the end of the year.” The end of the year has apparently happened. → Read More
As I’ve said before, I’m an avid user of foursquare, and it has become the de facto service for me when it comes to finding new places to grab dinner or just chill out with a drink. I’ve been using the service since it launched in 2009, and I’ve found it to be a fun way to chronicle the vast world that I live in. One day, I will be able to show my kids the history of check-ins and information that… → Read More
Editor’s note: Spencer Rascoff is CEO and a director of Zillow Inc. He previously co-founded Hotwire.com, which was sold to Expedia in 2003. Before his consumer Web career, Spencer was a private-equity investor at TPG Capital, and an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, and Allen & Company.
Following the closely watched Facebook IPO, there has been increased scrutiny around… → Read More
Webs.com, a DIY website creation service that helps non-technical, non-designers build good-looking websites on the fly, is introducing a new product today to complement its other offerings: a tool for creating professional Facebook Cover photos. Given that Webs.com’s target audience consists of those building business websites and Facebook pages, the new addition makes sense, especially now that… → Read More
Back in 2006, cloud computing company Joyent offered a lifetime subscription to bundle of hosting services for a one time fee of $500. Now, according to an e-mail sent to customers, Joyent is pulling the plug on those lifetime accounts. Customers are predictably upset, but not for the reasons you might expect. → Read More
GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman has stepped down after less than eight months on the job. Adelman replaced the beleaguered elephant-killing former CEO, Bob Parsons, and will be succeeded by Scott Wagner of KKR Capstone, a major GoDaddy investor. → Read More
It’s been an active seven days for Cvent, one of the largest event management companies in the world you’ve never heard of. The company, which offers web-based software for online event registration, management and more, has been on a mission to go beyond B2B services. Since raising $136 million last year, Cvent has re-focused on more consumer-facing event solutions, especially on mobile. As part… → Read More
Web analytics company KISSmetrics is today announcing the sale of its web-based survey tool, KISSinsights to CatchFree, a former TechCrunch Disrupt participant and the maker of a socially-infused comparison service for finding free web and mobile software solutions. Launched in 2010, and backed by $5.5 million in funding from Index Ventures, First Round Capital, True Ventures, Polaris and 500… → Read More
Mailjet, a cloud emailing service for tracking marketing and transactional emails, has just launched a mobile application for its business customers offering real-time email tracking. Within the mobile application, users can monitor email deliveries, plus keep an eye on metrics like bounces, opens and clicks.
The company, which just rolled out a new version of its platform a couple of weeks… → Read More
DudaMobile, the DIY mobile website maker, fresh off news of its $6 million Series B, is today announcing a partnership with Google. Going forward, Google’s GoMo service, which launched last November to refer business customers to development shops that could take their website mobile, is now offering a mobile website builder that’s powered by DudaMobile. → Read More
A recent post on MinimalMac posits an interesting case for the slow, growing sense of the irrelevance of Microsoft, at least in the applications space. Go and read the piece – it’s excellent – but the gist is that for years Microsoft banked on Office being as important to users as, say, Windows. Office is Microsoft’s biggest money maker and for most of this decade no self-respecting IT department… → Read More
While the nuances of this enormous, enormous business deal are certainly lost on this poor tech blogger, I thought it worthwhile to mention that three major Japanese tech companies are considering merging their LCD production divisions, presumably to compete more effectively against major rivals like Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, and big Chinese OEMs. What would the result be? Probably even more… → Read More
A little bird has told Reuters that Panasonic’s earnings call, due to start shortly, will bring news of huge layoffs in the works. The company is expected to announce 40,000 jobs will be cut from its 380,000-strong workforce. The cuts, which would take place over the next two years, would be the result of continuing “streamlining” in the face of tough competition. Just a little… → Read More
Acer is realizing that the iPad isn’t going to topple itself. While the strategy of just making shells for other companies’ OSes and components has worked for Acer for years, that clearly isn’t an approach that had any effect at all on the iPad’s dominance of the tablet sector.
People will get tired of the closed iOS, said Acer, and just spontaneously choose a crappy Android 2.x tablet made by… → Read More
This ongoing price-fixing scandal has resulted in nearly a billion dollars in penalties dealt out to Samsung and other LCD component makers over the last few years. We’ve seen a few of these cases, and it’s all crazy high-level business stuff, but we thought we should update you with the news that yes, it’s still going on, and yes, some fools are being charged cash money. Samsung… → Read More
The storage arm of Hitachi, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, has been bought by Western Digital for a combination of cash and shares totaling $4.3 billion. It was just last year that WD surpassed Seagate in terms of hard drives shipped, but both companies are facing a challenge as consumer and local storage trends more towards high-speed flash, leaving spinning drives in their dust. → Read More
Apple’s new JointVenture service is a business-grade Genius Bar for small to medium-sized business. For $499 you get support for 5 employees with the option to add employees for $99 a year. You get priority Genius Bar support and are allowed to attend special events geared to business users. You also receive phone support from folks who know about your specific needs and wants. → Read More
It was just a few months ago that we heard Samsung was leaving the e-paper e-reader business to focus on LCD-based systems. Those reports may have been mistaken, as the tech giant has just purchased Liquavista, a company originally spun off from Philips, and which is working on improved electrowetting techniques. → Read More
Some people just won’t accept their obsolescence quietly. A number of game retailers in the UK are outraged that their customers might get games from the secure and convenient Steam instead of leaving their houses and traveling across town to get it from their brick-and-mortar store. Consequently, they are threatening not to stock games from publishers who use the digital distribution service.
So… → Read More
Does it strike you as a little bit late to start talks on smart TVs? Me too, but to be fair, this isn’t Chunghwa and Intel’s first time to the rodeo. Reports have the tech giants getting together for a friendly chat later in the month. I’m sure “what’s best for the consumer?” will be #1 on their agenda. → Read More
While most of the talk these days has to do with the Wii-Move-Kinect motion control melee, there are a few third party developers out there who are still doing their own thing. Softkinetic makes motion control development software and a few fitness games that compete with Wii Fit and so on. They’re getting a bit of a bump as a series B fundraising round ends, netting them $10 million to keep… → Read More
Tesla has released the details of their 2010 Q2 financial performance, and it looks like things are coming up roses for the nascent auto maker. Sales are up, with nearly $27m in sales coming in — translating to a total of around 250 Roadsters shipped. Their gross margins are up, though; their business is growing, and hopefully cash on hand will suffice to pay for R&D and manufacturing… → Read More
If anyone wants to know where to find me, I’ll be in my cave, banging two rocks together. That seems to be the only place for me, since I can’t seem to wrap my head around DLC as a good thing — yet millions have decided to shell out, just recently passing the 20,000,000 sold mark for the Call Of Duty franchise. Congratulations all around, I guess, as they have clearly put out a… → Read More
The second quarter PC shipment data from IDC has hit, and it makes for interesting reading. First of all, sales are up all over the place; no one appears to be losing volume, though market share is shifting. The biggest upset has to be Asus, whose astonishing 83.6% growth over last year’s quarter puts it within a nose of overtaking Toshiba as the fifth-largest shipper of PCs in the world.
What… → Read More
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