SweetLabs, the San Diego company behind the Pokki app platform and the OpenCandy advertising network, has raised $13 million in funding in a Series C round led by Intel Capital, with earlier backers Google Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners also participating.
The fresh money will primarily be used to invest in Pokki, a platform that lets developers create and distribute desktop apps using… → Read More
“The future is the web.” So goes the mantra that seems to be echoing throughout Google, Facebook, and plenty of smaller tech companies that view the web as the solution to sidestep the fragmentation created by native app platforms. And they’re almost certainly right.
But the web still has a long way to go — it’s quite rare to come across web applications that feel anything like their desktop… → Read More
Years ago, I came to the conclusion that bundled software — those applications that piggyback alongside the applications you’re actually trying to install — are the spawn of the devil. They often trick users into installing software they don’t want (they’re the reason millions of people installed WeatherBug years ago when they really didn’t mean to). So when I first heard about OpenCandy, a… → Read More
If you’re a Windows user, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the concept of bundled software — you download an application you want, launch the installer, hit the “Next” button a few times, and find that you’ve inadvertently installed a spammy app that will haunt you for the rest of your PC’s life. OpenCandy is a startup that’s looking to reverse this trend by offering users bundled… → Read More
OpenCandy, the startup that tries to offer bundled applications that you might actually want to use, has added Joe Kraus, founder of Excite, JotSpot, and DigitalConsumer.org, to their board. Kraus is currently a Director of Product Management at Google.
Alongside the news, OpenCandy has also shared a pair of graphs showing their growth over the last year. They haven’t provided any absolute… → Read More
Ah, the Windows install process. Long associated with repeated clicking of the “Next” button, it’s also home to one of the more shady practices to exist in modern software: the bundled application. Hapless users looking to get through the process as quickly as possible inevitably wind up installing some junk software that they don’t really want or need, only to scratch their heads when their… → Read More
Over the weekend I wrote a post on the disgusting habit of hand shaking: Hand Shaking Is So Medieval. Let’s End It. 500 comments later, about 40% of readers seemed to agree with me. The rest think I have OCD or some other psychological condition that needs treatment. Or just have no social skills.
If I could take a poll, though, it’s clear that the people who have hands thrust at them more than… → Read More
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