Jason Kincaid
Jason Kincaid is a writer, tech pundit, on-screen video guy, and occasional conference host with ambitions of getting into comedy.
Before becoming a cliché, Jason worked as a writer at TechCrunch from 2008-12, spanning some of the site’s most formative years. There, he wrote over 3,000 posts, met with countless entrepreneurs, and interviewed key figures including FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Senator Al Franken, Google VP (and now Yahoo CEO) Marissa Mayer, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, and many others. He was the cohost of the weekly-ish talk show OMG/JK and the co-creator and host of TC Cribs.
Drawing on his experience at TechCrunch, in late 2014 he published his first book: The Burned-Out Blogger’s Guide to PR.
He has appeared on CNBC, BBC America, NPR, and G4, moderated several panels at SXSW, regularly serves as the emcee of the Startup Battlefield portion of TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference, and recently played himself on the hit HBO show, Silicon Valley.
He attended UCLA, graduating with a BS in Biology and a minor in Society and Genetics.
Crunchbase profile →Latest from Jason Kincaid
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First Look: Backplane, The Lady Gaga-Backed Community Platform With All-Star Investors (Invites)
Early last summer we wrote about Backplane, a mysterious startup with impressive backers and some major star power behind it: one of its cofounders, Troy Carter, is Lady Gaga’s manager. And Lady Gaga herself has a significant stake in the company, as well as hands-on involvement with its development. Details on the company’s product have been scant until now. But we’ve got… Read More
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Google Comes Up Short In Q4 Earnings
Google has just released its Q4 2011 results, and they didn’t live up to Wall Street’s expectations. Wall Street’s consensus for the quarter was $10.49 in non-GAAP earnings per share and $8.40 billion in revenue. Google missed on both counts, with EPS of $9.50 and net revenue of $8.13 billion. Google shares are down around 10% in after-hours trading. Read More
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Appstores.com Launches An ‘AdSense For Mobile Apps’
If you’re a developer of applications for iOS or Android — or a publisher looking to better monetize your mobile web content — you’re probably going to be interested in this post. Today Appstores.com is launching what it’s calling an ‘AdSense for apps’ — in other words, an ad unit that publishers can embed in their mobile websites that… Read More
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TCTV: Hundreds Rally In The Streets Of NYC To Defend The Internet
Yesterday, as some of the biggest sites on the web ‘blacked out’ in bold protests of the deeply flawed anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in several cities across the US to take the fight offline. Read More
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From Edu To Non-Profits, YouTube Aims To Walk The Path To Good
YouTube may be best known for its viral sensations, lawn gnomes, and feline shenanigans, but the site’s massive collection of content has given rise to plenty of more benevolent — and, some might say important — trends. Like helping non-profits including charity:water harness the power of video to connect to millions of viewers. And serving up lectures from major… Read More
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Aviary Launches Major Upgrade To SDK, Now Powering 10 Million Photo Edits Per Month
Aviary, the company that makes it easy for mobile developers to integrate image editing into their apps, has a major launch today: they’re introducing an overhauled version of their mobile SDK that’s both more powerful and significantly better looking than the previous one, which launched in September. You may associate Aviary with the startup’s advanced suite of web-based… Read More
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TC Alum Sarah Lacy Launches New Tech Blog, PandoDaily
In case you hadn’t noticed, the state of technology reporting isn’t exactly refreshing these days. There’s a lot of the same news getting rehashed over and over. There’s a lot of interesting stuff that isn’t getting discussed at all because it doesn’t have the word ‘Apple’ in the headline. And there are some bylines that used to appear on this… Read More
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ITC Sides With Motorola In Key Apple Patent Suit
Back in fall 2010, Apple filed suit against Motorola alleging that the company was violating several of its patents with its flagship line of Droid smartphones, all of which run Android. The case was filed with the US International Trade Commission — a favorite battleground for these smartphone suits, as it has the ability to block potentially infringing devices from import into the… Read More
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With SimpleGeo’s Shutdown Imminent, Parse Swoops In With A Life Preserver
Yesterday Urban Airship announced that it would be shutting down SimpleGeo on March 31 2012, only a few months after acquiring the company for around $3.5 million. The news irked plenty of developers — you can find a thread on Hacker News here where some SimpleGeo customers are voicing their frustration. So what are developers supposed to do now? Urban Airship’s blog post outlines… Read More
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Google’s Plan to Make Android Beautiful: Carrots And Sticks
Yesterday Google unveiled Android Design, a very nicely done (and sorely need) portal that instructs third-party developers on how they should go about designing their applications, both in terms of making them look nice, and in providing a consistent experience for users. But while these guidelines are a big step forward for Android, there’s another issue: Google doesn’t really… Read More
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Google Names VMware Cofounder Diane Greene To Its Board
Google has just announced that it’s named Diane B. Greene, a cofounder and longtime CEO of VMware, to its Board of Directors. Greene is also on Intuit’s Board of Directors, where she serves on the Audit and Risk Committee and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee as well. Greene was formerly President and CEO of VMware from 1998 through 2008, leading it to a $625… Read More
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Android Finally Gets Serious About Its Looks, Launches Official Design Portal
Tired of looking at Android apps that are decidedly more homely than their iOS counterparts? Google is too — and it’s finally doing something about it. Today the Android team has launched an official ‘Android Design’ portal, featuring an extensive guide outlining UI best practices that developers should work to use as they’re building their apps. You can find the… Read More
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Urtak Raises $500k To Ask You The Big Questions: Yes? No? Don’t Care?
Back in the old days of online publishing (say, 2007), you’d reach the bottom of a blog post or news article, peruse the comment section, possibly leave one of your own, and then move on to the next hot story. It was a simpler time. These days, things are a lot different. Many sites are now experimenting with myriad widgets: story recommendations, games, polls, a dozen sharing… Read More
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Twitter Really, Really Hates Google’s New Google+ Integration
This morning, Google began rolling out a major change to its core search engine that intertwines results from Google+ (and Picasa) with the ‘normal’ algorithmically-generated results we’ve come to expect. There have been plenty of critiques of the news, including John Battelle’s discussion on how this isn’t actually integrating ‘Your World’, as… Read More
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Eyeview Raises $5.2 Million For Personalized Video Ads (And They’re Pretty Nifty)
Personalized video ads sound like one of those visions of that future — like holographic sharks — that are always a ways off. But a company called Eyeview is already making them. Their technology is impressive, and they’ve worked with brands including AT&T, T-Mobile, and McDonalds. Today, the company is announcing that it’s raised $5.2 million in Series B funding… Read More
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Google Fuses Google+ Into Search — And There Are Bigger Changes Afoot
Since the launch of Google+, Google has been putting a lot of muscle behind promoting and integrating the service into its core products. Fire up a new Android 4.0 device, and you’ll be prompted to create a Google+ account if you haven’t already. They’ve given it TV ads, not to mention a priceless promotion on its homepage. And today, Google is launching an update to its… Read More
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Hipmunk Checks In: Launches Hotel Search For iOS And Android
Getting travel search right on a mobile phone is tough. Thankfully Hipmunk, for the most part, has nailed it. The service launched its iPhone application last February and an Android app in September, both of which serve Hipmunk’s agony-reducing flight search in a smaller — and very polished — platter. Now Hipmunk is giving those mobile apps a big upgrade: they now both… Read More
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Top10’s Nifty Spotify App Drives 100,000 Song Recommendations In Three Weeks
On November 30 2011, Spotify made a bold move: it became an application platform, allowing third-party apps to live within the walls of Spotify’s official application so that they could take advantage of the service’s full-song streaming and tight Facebook integration. The revamped Spotify went live last month, and there are 13 third-party apps now available as part of the App… Read More
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Aisle50 Lands $2.6M To Save You 50% On Organic Batter Blaster (And Other Fine Foods)
Don’t get too excited — the Organic Batter Blaster shown above, on sale for a mere $2.49, has already sold out. But fear not: more grocery-centric deals are on the way. Today Y Combinator alum Aisle50, which is best described as a sort of ‘Groupon for groceries’, is announcing that it’s closed a $2.6 million funding round. The round was led by August Capital… Read More
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Codecademy’s CodeYear Attracts 100,000 Aspiring Programmers In 48 Hours
Talk about starting your year off on the right foot. Two days ago, Codecademy — a startup that’s looking to bring programming to the masses — launched a nifty initiative called Code Year. It’s pretty straightforward: sign up, and each week you’ll receive some programming lessons in your email inbox. And apparently, there are a lot of people who want to learn how… Read More
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