Sarah Perez
Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to becoming a professional blogger, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.
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Latest from Sarah Perez
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Visa Announces Acquisition Of TrialPay To Expand Its Offers Platform
Visa announced today that it’s planning to acquire Mountain View-based TrialPay, an e-commerce payment platform which sits in between payments and advertising, providing consumers with an alternative way to pay for items by agreeing to take advantage of another merchant’s offer. For example, in mobile applications, TrialPay allows gamers to unlock premium content by agreeing to… Read More
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Vimeo Finally Adds Chromecast Support Via Its iOS App
Streaming video service Vimeo now works with Chromecast, the company announced this morning, making it one of the more high-profile services to support Google’s dongle-based media player which plugs into your TV’s HDMI port and allows you to “cast” video, photos, music and more from your phone or computer to your television’s big screen. The Vimeo integration… Read More
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YC-Backed YesGraph Raises A Million To Build A Better Referral System For Mobile Apps
When launching a new consumer application, especially those in the social space, many developers today rely on an invite mechanism that has the app’s initial user base reaching out and recommending the app to their friends. But today, these invite systems are often fairly basic – they connect to a phone’s address book and then force the user to sift through their hundreds… Read More
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SOLS, A Maker Of 3D-Printed Shoe Insoles, Raises $11.1 Million To Bring Its Product To Consumers And Athletes
SOLS, a 3D-printing company which, to date, has focused on printing custom shoe insoles prescribed by doctors for foot pain and other ailments, has now raised an additional $11.1 million in funding to help bring the product directly to consumers. The move will make it one of the first companies to use 3D printing technologies to market custom-manufactured wearables. The round, which arrives… Read More
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Google Makes “Mobile-Friendliness” A Ranking Signal Worldwide, Boosts Indexed Apps In Search Results
Google today announced two notable changes that will affect the rankings of search results for users accessing Google search on mobile devices. It will now take into consideration a site’s mobile-friendliness as one of its ranking signals, and information from indexed mobile applications will also begin to influence ranking for signed-in users who have the app installed on their smartphone. Read More
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Branch Metrics Raises $15 Million For Its Smarter Mobile Deep Linking Technology
Palo Alto-based Branch Metrics, one of the many companies focused on developing better mobile deep linking technology – that is, links that point users to specific pages within mobile applications themselves – is announcing today the close of its $15 million Series A round of funding, led by existing investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and TriplePoint Capital President Ben… Read More
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Circa Breaks Free From Mobile, Brings Its Personalized News Digest To The Web
Circa, a mobile news reader for iOS and Android which, to date, has focused on offering users short, easily digestible news stories that allow you to more quickly consume news while on the go, is making a notable change to its service today: it’s expanding to the web. On a new website at CircaNews.com, the company is taking its summarized news stories to the big screen in an effort… Read More
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Google Starts Testing Mobile App Ads In The Google Play Store
Google announced this morning the launch of a pilot program which will allow mobile application developers the ability to advertise their apps directly within the Google Play store. These ads, which will initially be made available to advertisers already running search ads on Google.com, will also only be shown against Google Play search results. That is, they won’t just randomly appear… Read More
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Nickelodeon Unveils “Noggin,” A Mobile Subscription Service For Preschoolers Arriving In March
Nickelodeon today unveiled its new mobile streaming subscription service called Noggin, which will be aimed at preschoolers and priced at $5.99 per month when it launches next month. Parent company Viacom had previously announced the forthcoming service’s arrival in January, noting also that it would not require households to have a cable or satellite TV subscription in order to access… Read More
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Kickstarter Says Today’s 2-Hour Long Outage Wasn’t Pebble’s Fault
Kickstarter says that the roughly two-hour-long outage that took place today was unrelated to the massive traffic sent to its service by those backing the Pebble smartwatch’s latest, and now record-breaking, campaign. According to a company spokesperson, it was only a coincidence that the Kickstarter website went down today, even though yesterday was one of the company’s… Read More
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YC-Backed Answerbook Helps Retailers Automate Personalized Email Campaigns
A team of e-commerce vets is today launching a new service aimed at online retailers called Answerbook which allows companies to better target shoppers with highly personalized emails based on those customers’ website and email interactions as well as their purchase history. The solution today is largely aimed at smaller retailers, like those hosting their sites on e-commerce… Read More
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Netflix Expands Its Kids’ Lineup With Five New Shows, Including An “Inspector Gadget” Reboot
Netflix this morning announced it’s preparing to expand its lineup of original and exclusive programs aimed at children with an order of five new kids’ shows, including remakes of well-loved classics like Inspector Gadget and Danger Mouse. While children today may not be familiar with these titles themselves, their Gen X and millennials parents likely are – and… Read More
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Layer, Which Lets Developers Add Messaging To Any App, Launches To Public
Layer, the company making it possible for developers to add rich messaging capabilities to their apps without having to build their own infrastructure from the ground up, is today making its service available to the public, following its beta period that began with its TechCrunch Disrupt win back in 2013. In addition to today’s launch, Layer is also introducing a new product called Atlas… Read More
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Medium Goes After Tumblr With Changes That Encourage Shorter Posts
Only a month ago, Tumblr upgraded its writing interface to better compete with newer blogging platform Medium, best known for its long-form content. Today, Medium is turning the tables and moving into Tumblr’s territory instead with a series of changes that encourage writers to share stories of any length – even shorter posts and incomplete thoughts. Read More
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The “Shark Tank” Effect On Apps
Sitting at the top of the iTunes App Store for the fourth day in a row and counting is Scholly, another one of the many mobile applications that found its way onto the national stage by way of ABC’s popular TV pitch competition Shark Tank. The show now has a history of being able to move the market when it comes to turning apps that would otherwise be also-rans into mobile hits –… Read More
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Waffle House Partners With “Sharing Economy” Delivery Service Roadie
A recently launched mobile application called Roadie, which connects those who need to ship something quickly with drivers who are already going in that same direction and are willing to haul the cargo for a small fee, has today partnered with Waffle House restaurants. The restaurant chain will be promoting the app across its 1,750 location in 25 states, and will serve as the first of… Read More
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Facebook, Now With Over 2 Million Active Advertisers, Launches Ads Manager App For iOS
Facebook today rolled out a new mobile application designed to help the company’s now over 2 million active advertisers manage their ads from their smartphone. The app, called Facebook Ads Manager, is initially available on iOS, and allows its users to create and edit ads, track spending, view ad results, receive ad-related notifications, and more. These notifications can alert… Read More
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Two Companies Are Adding “Smarts” To The Classic Jump Rope
With all the excitement around wearables and fitness trackers, it seems inevitable that something like this would occur: there are now two separate companies running Kickstarter campaigns aimed at improving the classic jump rope by adding smart technology to the product. The “smart ropes,” as they’re being called, are designed more for those who use a jump rope during their… Read More
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Target.com Undercuts Amazon And Walmart With New Free Shipping Minimums
Target today announced a change to its e-commerce site designed to undercut competitors like Amazon and Walmart: It dropped the minimum requirements for free shipping from $50 previously down to just $25. This means that the free shipping minimum requirement from Target is now actually $10 less than it is on Amazon, and half of Walmart’s minimum. Read More
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Hands On With “YouTube Kids,” Google’s Newly Launched, Child-Friendly YouTube App
Late last week, news leaked that YouTube was poised to release a new, kid-friendly version of its YouTube service for mobile devices. Today, much to the delight of families everywhere, that app has now arrived, complete with a simplified design, a curated selection of kid-safe content, parental controls, and more. Google says the app will be made available to families on both Android and… Read More
