Bidzy, a new platform for connecting local services businesses with customers who need the service they offer in the next few hours, is launching at Disrupt NY 2013 today. Like the best ideas, Bidzy’s premise is simple: allow the customer to specify exactly what they want and the amount they are willing to pay and then let the individual businesses decide if they’re happy to take the job on. → Read More
At the beginning of the month, we broke the news that Google’s acquisition, BufferBox, was planning on setting up shop in the Bay Area. Today, it’s clear that this wasn’t just a plan, as its co-founder proudly shared the first U.S. BufferBox location, the nicely trafficked Coffee Bar in San Francisco. It’s no surprise that BufferBox will be setting up these shipment lockers… → Read More
BlackJet, which we’ve described as the “Uber for private jets,” has announced San Francisco and Las Vegas as two new destinations. The company was founded by Garrett Camp, the co-founder of Uber, so it’s no surprise that the young company is already ramping up its coverage areas. What makes BlackJet so interesting is that the company has come up with a model to make… → Read More
When you think about using Square, it’s very easy to drift off into thoughts of paying for coffee, food, or goods at a farmer’s market. In reality, the point-of-sale system that Square has created is a powerful thing for any business, small or large. Yesterday, TechCrunch spent some time at Safeway Ice Rink in Union Square, right in the heart of San Francisco. I’ve learned that… → Read More
![A Discussion About Amazing Innovation With Christian Sanz, The Creator Of DroneGames [TCTV] | TechCrunch](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/a-discussion-about-amazing-innovation-with-christian-sanz-the-creator-of-dronegames-tctv-techcrunch.jpg?w=250)
Christian Sanz, the creator of the DroneGames, sat down with TCTV to discuss how it all came about and who the brilliant folks are behind NodeCopter, the library that DroneGames participants used to build their projects.
A brilliant and vibrant community is starting here in San Francisco, and it’s pretty exciting to watch. → 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
Clearly, I’m interested in how companies interact with their surroundings, as I feel like it’s an important part of pushing our industry forward. Nobody likes to think about five developers locked in a room somewhere, coding until they pass out. Yes, I know that’s the reality for many young startups, but as they grow up into larger companies, things change.
For a company like Twitter, one of… → Read More
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is unveiling proposed changes to the City of San Francisco’s open data legislation today, creating more structure around how the city’s data is shared with the public.
You can read the proposed revisions here, but the big change appears to be the addition of a Chief Data Officer, who will be “responsible for sharing City data with the public, facilitating the sharing… → Read More
Huzzah! Fine denizens of New York and the City Of Saint Francis, Microsoft beseeches you to untether your computing devices and connect to their ethereal Internet for the lofty sum of zero! Beginning today, the so called “Wi-Fidelity” service will be available in various “hot-spots” around both cities including the Wharf of the Fisherman and “Union” Squares of both cities, provided the Coppers can… → Read More
You ask for a ride, it rolls up, you get into the front seat and you give the driver a fist bump. This sounds like something you do when your best friend picks you up, and that’s exactly the experience that super-hot ride-sharing service Lyft wants to emulate.
I sat down with Lyft’s co-founder, John Zimmer, today, to discuss the company’s approach to community and to this ever-growing… → Read More
I’m not a fan of pitting two or more companies against one another and calling “war,” but the reality is that there’s such a thing as competition and advantage in any marketplace. One of the hottest verticals of interest as of late is transportation. I’m ready to buy a Lit Motors car, which we saw at Disrupt, and I’ve used Uber since it launched.
One of the things that I experienced this past… → Read More
ViaCycle, a new Y Combinator-backed startup, wants to be to bike sharing what Zipcar has become for cars. While there are many cities around the world where bike sharing is a fact of daily life, only a few cities in the U.S. currently offer similar programs and the ones that exist are often expensive to operate. The viaCycle team, which has been working on its platform for three years, uses a very… → Read More
Sprint is making solid headway with its new LTE network — it’s already live in 15 (mostly Texan markets) with another four slated to light up before Labor Day rolls around and the carrier aims to have 12,000 LTE sites online by the end of the year.
Sure, the process has been held up at least partially thanks to some damn birds, but now it seems another region should officially get the LTE nod… → Read More
Pinterest is pinning its name on a new office door: the company today officially announced that it is moving its offices from Palo Alto to San Francisco, confirming our reports from June that were further confirmed this weekend by Pinterest’s international growth executive Sarah Tavel. Pinterest tells us its office will be at 572 7th Street for now.
The news was delivered today by San… → Read More
When Mark Zuckerberg left Harvard in the summer of 2004, he didn’t move his fledgling company to the mountains, or the Gulf of Mexico, or San Francisco, he moved to Silicon Valley. Well, Palo Alto to be precise. In an interview with Y Combinator partner Jessica Livingston last year, he said of his impression of Silicon Valley, “You get this feeling that you need to be out here.” Many founders are… → Read More
As a resident of NYC, I find little use for the SF Climates iOS app that all of my San Francisco-based friends (read: social media whores) are boasting over today.
But a lot of you do live there, so you might find it useful. Let’s say you live in the Marina and for some reason need to go to the Dogpatch or vice versa but you’re unsure what the weather is like. Or maybe the grit of the Mission… → Read More
Pando Networks is releasing new data today about American broadband speeds, taken from over 10 million downloads facilitated by the company’s consumer-facing software throughout the course of 2011. The study’s goal was to discover which cities in the U.S. had the fastest average download speeds, and not surprisingly, major tech hotspots like San Francisco, Austin, Seattle and New York all led the… → Read More
With 30,000 tech jobs already in town and more (hopefully) on the way, San Francisco has been making a big push to make its city as friendly as possible to entrepreneurs. In January, we saw Mayor Ed Lee, Ron Conway, and former TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde launched sfCITI, a committee which focuses on hiring — both placing and training competent programmers and just generally bringing smart people… → Read More
Slowly, but surely, Vienna is building its own reputation as a startup hotspot and eventually there might be a fight between Berlin, London, Copenhagen and Vienna, although London and Berlin are ahead at the moment. There have been a number of large exits driven by Austrian-born founders (exits from UCP, Jahjah, 3united and last.fm exceed 1 billion USD). Companies such as Wikitude, Runtastic and … → Read More
“Cell phones cause cancer.” “No they don’t!” “Yes they do.” “No they don’t!”
Back and forth it goes, like the world’s slowest game of tennis. One study spends 6 months proving that cell phones turn you into a giant walking tumor, and another pops up showing that cell phones cause nothing but an increased need to tell people what you’re doing.
Whatever the case, the City of San Francisco… → Read More
Just the antidote for a restless Friday morning: A cartoon rendering of the Twitter-tax controversy complete with a groggy Biz Stone masquerading as Twitter’s CEO, the role of Zynga played by a frontiersman, and a cartoony but pretty realistic view of the Tenderloin.
Video on the jump. → Read More
San Francisco City Supervisors are meeting today to vote on whether companies like Twitter moving into the city’s blighted Tenderloin neighborhood will get a generous enough tax break to keep them from leaving the city. It’s an important vote for all of Twitter’s employees, as it will probably dictate whether they start commuting to Brisbane or not. And it’s an important vote for Zynga, Yelp and… → Read More
While grandma flips through photo albums on her sleek iPad, government agencies (and most corporations) process mission-critical transactions on cumbersome web-based front ends that function by tricking mainframes into thinking that they are connected to CRT terminals. These systems are written in computer languages like Assembler and COBOL, and cost a fortune to maintain. I’ve written about… → Read More
The G1 doesn’t officially hit the streets until tomorrow, but the 3rd and Market store in San Francisco will begin selling the first Android device starting today at 6PM PDT. If you’re not in the area and you didn’t pre-order then you’ll have to wait until tomorrow if, of course, you’re in a 3G market. Otherwise you’ll have to order online or in-store. Said 3G market stores will open… → Read More
I’ve been working on a Craigslist scammer for a few weeks – transcripts to come – and I wanted to see if any of you guys knew of this area in San Fran. The address is 179 W Anderson Street. Is this a house or a business? → Read More
In an effort to save his job, or at least have the last laugh, a computer engineer has locked up San Francisco’s computer network and he’s not giving up the key. According to reports, network administrator Terry Childs created a password that granted him exclusive access to the city’s computer network; when the pass codes he gave to police didn’t work, he was taken into custody. He’s… → Read More
Nice work, San Francisco. Nice work. This fall, San Francisco will be testing a system of 4-inch by 4-inch mesh-networked bumps glued to 25% of the city’s parking spaces. The bumps will be linked to various wireless networks, which will relay parking information to a smartphone-friendly website and nearby street signs. So instead of driving around the block 15 times, you’ll be able to see… → Read More
Austin, TX
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Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
