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TechCrunch (30 unread)

May 12, 2012
12:35
Never Mind The Servers: AngelPad Start-Up ElasticBox Makes It Easy To Set Up Web Apps

If your response to virtual infrastructure installations is a derisive "Boring, Sidney, booring" then maybe AngelPad startup ElasticBox isn't for you. However, if you love cloud computing like Nancy loved heroin, I think you may be in luck. ElasticBox, founded by former Microsofies Ravi Srivatsav, Alberto Arias Maestro, and Amadeo Casas Cuadrado, is a service that makes setting up and running a cloud-based service quick and easy. With the service you don't have to set up the environment in order to run an app. Instead, you can focus on the actual functionality and far less on server maintenance.
13:00
Gillmor Gang: Tomorrow Never Knows

The Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — turned off their minds, relaxed, and floated downstream on the push notification inbox of tomorrow. Borrowing a page from the Tibetan Book of Windows, the Gang debated the impossibility of multitasking, the existence of a new uber operating system, and the overall impact of surrendering to the void. Revolver marked the exact center of the Beatles arc; everything before was prologue, everything after continues to expand as the media is transformed. A quarter of a million may seem like a lot of dollars for playing one song once on a TV show, just as we await the size of the Facebook IPO. Recorded first and sequenced last, Tomorrow Never Knows is the end of the beginning.
14:06
No, Snapchat Isn’t About Sexting, Says Co-Founder Evan Spiegel

“The minute you tell someone that images on your server disappear, everyone jumps to sexting.” Evan Spiegel laughed and leaned back into his chair during his first sitdown interview since his iPhone app Snapchat blew up over the last month. Snapchat is #12 on the free iOS photo app charts in the U.S. and just scored some mainstream media attention in The New York Times. Why? Snapchat is a photo-sharing app that changes privacy norms in a very novel way. The free app allows users to send others photos and control how long receivers can see them. These photos last for up to 10 seconds, before they disappear forever. “It seems odd that at the beginning of the Internet everyone decided everything should stick around forever,” Spiegel said. “I think our application makes communication a lot more human and natural."
15:00
Mobile – Facebook And Google Can’t Live With It And They Can’t Live Without It

This week Facebook did a virtually unprecedented thing. In the middle of its IPO roadshow it modified its S1 filing in reaction to questions it had been being asked by analysts. The modification I refer to stated that Facebook wanted to acknowledge a trend; that trend is the declining ARPU (average revenue per user) being seen in its current quarter. This trend is being driven, Facebook said, by the growth in its usage on mobile platforms and its inability to monetize those platforms in the same way, or at the same rate, as its desktop/laptop offerings. The previous iterations of the S1 had all contained the possibility of this trend. Even the likelihood of it. But the actuality of the trend was noted here for the first time in the S1.
16:00
Postmates Get It Now Users Spend $100+ A Month — At Least In Month One

Last December, Postmates launched with the plan to offer up a courier delivery service for local businesses throughout San Francisco. But then the team had a brilliant idea: What if it gave its couriers pre-paid debit cards, which would let them purchase goods for customers and then deliver them anywhere in the city? That idea evolved into the Get It Now app, which Postmates launched in private beta in mid-April. Since then, the app has attracted more than 1,000 users in just four weeks. Not surprisingly, many of those users come from tech startups themselves, with employees of Twitter, TaskRabbit, Square, Cherry, and Yelp all signed up to use the service.
17:00
Digital Wallet Battle Heats Up As Visa And MasterCard Enter The Game

This week, two of the major players in the credit card industry, Visa and MasterCard launched their online digital wallet services. Known as V.me (Visa's) and PayPass Wallet Services (MasterCard), both are very similar initiatives which see the companies clamoring to become the credit card of choice for digital transactions, the way they fight today to be the credit card for all the other transactions taking place out there in the real world. And, to be clear, a "digital" wallet isn't necessarily the same as a "mobile wallet," although a digital wallet service could also be housed in a mobile app interface, as both MasterCard and Visa plan on offering in the near future.
19:30
Five Ways Native Monetization Is Changing Silicon Valley

With a $100 billion IPO pending, it’s with confident defiance that Facebook has thumbed its nose at traditional web advertising models. On Facebook, despite their $5 billion 2012 forecasted ad revenue, you’ll see no prerolls, no rich media ads, no “punch the monkeys,” and no interruption. Facebook is leading the charge for a new generation of media companies who are building their businesses on “native” advertising models, a fundamental shift away from the traditional interruptive ad models that users have learned to ignore. Facebook’s commitment to native monetization signals significant change to come.
23:00
Pornterest Vs. Pornstagram Vs. Tumblr’s #NSFW

Wow, Pinterest’s porn section is fairly tame. I was just curious about the type of not-so-mommy-friendly content that might be popping up on what’s now the third-most popular social network after Facebook and Twitter. (Also I’m bored). After all, Tumblr houses, like, a lot of porn. Both services aim to help their members find platforms for self-expression, one through pinning images for inspiration, the other through blogging, and both have also had to fight unwanted content on their networks.
May 13, 2012
0:33
Marc Andreessen Visits Peter Thiel’s Stanford Class To Talk Startups, How He Invests & The Future

It wasn't so long ago that Peter Thiel began publicly pushing the somewhat controversial idea that higher education is in a bubble, or launching an initiative to help smart young people "stop out of school." For these reasons, Thiel's decision to teach a higher ed course was unexpected, even controversial. Last month, he began teaching a class at Stanford called "Computer Science 183: Startup." One of his students, Blake Masters, provides a glimpse into Thiel's lectures through his comprehensive class notes. Masters has turned his notes into essays and posted them on his blog, one of which is a fascinating conversation between the investor and Marc Andreessen on the past, present, and future of the tech industry, which we've highlighted herein.
2:00
Help! There’s A Patent On My Idea! What Now?

One of the most frequent questions I get asked goes something like this: “I have a really great idea, but (name of big company or university) has a patent on that. What do I do?” With over 8,000,000 patents issued to date and thousands of new patents issued weekly, chances are good that patents have been issued that are relevant to your business or idea. Knowingly infringing an active patent can lead to disastrous consequences for your business. So what do you do?
3:08
PayPal Gets Its Own Share Of The Yahoo Diaspora, Hires JavaScript Icon Douglas Crockford

The reorganizing and downsizing at Yahoo -- and possibly the executive scandal at the very top of the pyramid -- are leading to a wave of talent departures at the company: the latest in that story is that Douglas Crockford, a trailblazing Java guru most recently at Yahoo, is joining eBay's payment giant PayPal. The news was announced by Bill Scott, PayPal's senior director of UI engineering, on his own blog, yesterday. Scott himself had also worked at Yahoo years ago.
6:00
Convertible Note Seed Financings: Econ 101 For Founders

What Is a Conversion Discount? In the context of a seed financing, a convertible note is a loan that typically automatically converts into shares of preferred stock upon the closing of a Series A round of financing. A conversion discount (or “discount”) is a mechanism to reward the noteholders for their investment risk by granting to them the right to convert the amount of the loan, plus interest, at a reduced price (in percentage terms) to the purchase price paid by the Series A investors. In other words, the founders are saying to the investors, in effect, if you take this risk and give us money today, we’ll reward you by giving you “20% off” at our Series A round down the road (20% being the usual discount, as discussed below). For example, if the investors in a $500,000 convertible note seed financing were granted a discount of 20%, and the price per share of the Series A Preferred Stock were $1.00, the noteholders would convert the loan at an effective price (referred to as the “conversion price”) of $0.80 per share and thus receive 625,000 shares ($500,000 divided by $0.80), which is 125,000 shares more than a Series A investor would receive for its $500,000 investment and a 1.25x return on paper ($625,000 divided by $500,000). (The foregoing example does not include accrued interest on the loan, which is typically about 5%-7% annually, as discussed below.)
9:00
Box: The Path From Arrington’s Backyard To A Billion Dollar Business

It's no secret that many deals have been struck and key relationships formed at TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington's former house in Atherton. In case you aren't familiar, Arrington threw epic parties at his home for the tech community in the early days of TechCrunch. Police were called, booze was flowing, people passed out. I don't have enough fingers to count how many times I've spoken to a Silicon Valley entrepreneur or VC who said he or she used to frequent Mike's house parties back in the day. Clearly this was the place to be for anyone looking to meet their next investor, acquirer, co-founder etc. And that's exactly what Box co-founders Dylan Smith and Aaron Levie were thinking when they showed up to Mike's house in early February 2006 for the Naked Conversations TechCrunch Party. It was in Mike's backyard where they met then Draper Fisher Jurvetson partner Emily Melton. Beers in hand (actually only Levie was of age-barely, so Smith was drinking water), the pair pitched Melton on their idea. She was so impressed and their passion for what they were building cloud storage, that she immediately introduced them to the DFJ partner covering SaaS and enterprise investments, Josh Stein, who months later led Box's first round of institutional investment.
11:04
To 4G Or Not 4G? Apple Pulls “WiFi+4G” Branding For iPads

What is 4G? Many an armchair philosopher over the past few weeks has pondered this concept and now, thanks to a minor tempest caused by upset customers, Apple has changed their iPad branding from "WiFi+4G" to "WiFi+Cellular." Although the iPads were compatible with US 4G networks, the iPads didn't work with international 4G connections, thereby dropping a few folks in Australia into a tizzy. To prevent this, Apple put the old moniker down the memory hole and replaced it with the new naming convention.
11:19
TC Gadgets PSA: Nickelodeon’s Gak And Floam Are Back

If you're thinking of a gift for mom, you probably can't go wrong with Nickelodeon's Gak or Floam, two toys made back in the 1990s. Gak is, as the name suggests, a sloppy sort of slime while floam is the same slime with foam balls suspended inside. The toys cost $6.99 each and are available now.
11:41
Hold The Phone — How The Future Of Web Advertising Is Linked To The Call

We're all now familiar with how adwords campaigns on Google work. You buy keywords commonly used in search terms, such as "plumber in X town", and send people to a response mechanism, usually a web site. But increasingly that response mechanism is not a just a web site but a phone number as well - sometimes it's even just a phone number. But these days it's rarely an ordinary number - it's usually a 'smart number' that performs certain kinds of actions and sends data, just like browser calls a web page and sends data from that page. These smart numbers can be made to grab an RSS feed, play a sound file, make the caller fill out a form with their voice - just about anything. Increasingly we are seeing tech startups address what you do with that phone call and the data and analytics that can be pulled from it, just like on the Web. While Google and Facebook look at this area with their pet own projects, startups have appeared on the market to address this, such as AdInsight, Tropo, Twilio and Iovox, among others.
13:25
Minuscule Microprojector Promises Bright, Touchable Displays Of The Future

These Fraunhofer microprojectors are still quite a ways off from being implemented into real phones, but the technology is certainly interesting. Based on an insect's compound eye, the projector is a wafer of tiny LEDs that can twist and turn depending on position. This means there is no "keystoning" and the beams striking the surface will always be "crisp and clear." “Our projector consists of hundreds of tiny microprojectors in an array, each of which generates a complete image," said Marcel Sieler, a researcher. "This technology, known as 'array projection,' is modeled on nature – on the compound eye found in some insects – and with it for the first time we can create very thin and bright LED projection systems with tremendous imaging properties."
13:42
Report: Thompson Out, Media Man Levinsohn In As Yahoo’s Interim CEO

We're still confirming the news with Yahoo but AllThingsD's Kara Swisher is reporting that as of tomorrow, Scott Thompson will be leaving his role as CEO of Yahoo, and getting replaced, on an interim basis, by Ross Levinsohn, currently the global media head. Update: Thompson's now officially out and Levinsohn's in. Read the updated report here. Thompson's position has been mired in controversy since news broke the other week that he had lied about his qualifications -- and that situation seemed to be going from bad to worse as the company failed to act on the news in any significant way -- and Thompson remained in control. Some may even find the method in which he is finally going unsatisfactory: the company will apparently cite "personal reasons" for his departure, according to AllThingsD.
15:46
No More Beating Around The Bush At Yahoo: Thompson Is Out, Levinsohn In As CEO, Effective Immediately

Well, after days and days of nothing, suddenly things are moving at a fast clip. After news came out just hours ago that Thompson might be leaving the company tomorrow, moments ago Yahoo officially confirmed the news, as we reported earlier: Ross Levinsohn is now interim Chief Executive Officer, replacing Scott Thompson, and Fred Amoroso is chairman of the board. Scott Thompson's departure and the reasons for it are not mentioned at all in the statement, which simply says he has left the company. (Earlier a report in AllThingsD had said he would resign for personal reasons, although at least in this statement nothing at all is mentioned for why he has left.) The announcement from Yahoo also underscores how activist shareholder Third Point is very much a key player in all of this.
17:33
With Its New Google+ App, Google Finally Gets It Right

Some people just love Google+ and others just hate the company's efforts to create a social network and a social layer across all of its services. Google itself seems to be pretty happy with the results it is getting from Google+ so far - or at least that's what the company is saying publicly. No matter your overall feelings about Google+, though, Google's new native Google+ app for iPhone is worth a look, especially because it's hopefully just a first glimpse at what more of Google's mobile apps will look like in the near future.
18:55
Convertible Note Seed Financings: Founders Beware!

This post is the third part of a three-part primer on convertible note seed financings. Part 1, entitled “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Convertible Note Seed Financings (But Were Afraid To Ask),” addressed the basics. Part 2, entitled “Convertible Note Seed Financings: Econ 101 for Founders,” addressed the economics. This part will address certain tricky issues.
20:00
StrayBoots CEO Discusses Making $12 Per Game, And It’s Only On SMS!

Very rarely do we see gaming startups launch on the rather limited platform of SMS. Mobile games are all about the graphics, the functionality, and the ability to leverage the very best of technology through an app. But StrayBoots, a real-world scavenger hunt via text, has managed to generate $200,000 in revenue over the past 12 months, with nearly 50,000 paying customers. Oh, and did I mention that it's all through SMS?
21:01
How To Raise A $1M Seed Round

When I talk to my friends who are not currently at startups, or the Silicon Valley, the perception is that VCs and individual investors are throwing around investment dollars like drunken sailors. Outsiders think that there is a bubble, and that any company with two engineers and an idea will get funded (though there is some truth to that in certain cases). The reality is, competition has never been fiercer for startups, especially at the seed stage, to close a round. The pendulum may have swung for Y Combinator companies, but not everyone else.
23:00
Companion Is The New Assistant

Did you hear that 2012 is the year of the assistant? It’s clear: Siri was only the beginning. Today, assistants can do my bidding for a bunch of transactional, task-oriented use cases, saving me a few precious steps along the way. In the future, assistants will be capable of doing more and more non-trivial things. And, Norm Winarsky is right -- Siri isn’t one assistant to rule them all. We’ll soon have a cadre of specialized software agents at our side.
May 14, 2012
1:54
Europe’s ‘OpenTable’ Livebookings Eats Up Another $24M From Balderton, Wellington, Ekstranda

Livebookings, the restaurant booking and marketing service that competes with services like OpenTable, is announcing today that it has picked up another $24 million (£15 million) in funding to continue growing its business in Europe and beyond. The news highlights two trends we've seen emerging recently around here: companies dedicated to eating out are not going hungry in the current economic climate; and the more local, European counterparts to U.S.-based tech companies are getting a lot of attention from investors and consumers. Today's round of funding, Livebookings' fourth, is being led by existing investors Balderton Capital, Wellington Partners and Ekstranda and takes the total amount raised by the company to about $62 million.
2:33
Qmerce Brings Brand-Customizable Social Games to Facebook

With $450K behind it in funding, Israeli-based Qmerce is helping business large and small add social games to their communities, particularly on Facebook. The premise behind Qmerce's value proposition isn't new. That is, branded social games aimed at driving user engagement via rewards, achievements and consequently, loyalty. With over 40 customers to date, including Crocs and Pizza Hut (the Israeli franchises), and 300,000 games played, it looks like this upstart might be going somewhere.
4:06
Zynga Picks Up Mobile Gaming Startup Wild Needle In A Talent Deal

Zynga has done a small acquisition of Wild Needle, a female-focused casual games company that was backed by Playdom co-founder Rick Thompson. Wild Needle was raising funding back in late 2010 to build casual, mobile games for women and closed a round with Thompson and Shasta Ventures. They didn't release their first title until more than a year later in March (which is a pretty long time to be building a casual, freemium game). It was called Shoptown Hero and it looks like it lasted in the store for about a month before they pulled it two weeks ago (see chart below).
5:39
NTT Docomo Will Pay Up To $300M To Buy Italian Mobile Content Company Buongiorno

Mobile carrier NTT Docomo today announced a move in its strategy to grow its content business outside of its traditional base of Japan: it issued a tender offer to acquire Buongiorno, a mobile content company based in Italy, paying up to ¥24 billion ($300 million) for the assets. Docomo notes in a statement that the acquisition would be made by its Germany-based subsidiary, Docomo Deutschland, and that Maruo del Rio, Buongiorno's majority shareholder and chairman with 20 percent of Buongiorno's stock, has already agreed to sell his stake to the carrier. The deal would see Buongiorno become a subsidiary of NTT Docomo.
8:41
ITU: There Are Now Over 1 Billion Users Of Social Media Worldwide, Most On Mobile

What does it mean when Facebook says it has 901 million monthly active users on its network? According to figures out from the International Telecommunication Union, it effectively signifies that Facebook is the world's largest social network by a very long shot. The ITU says in a new report that that the number of people using all social media services have passed the 1 billion mark. That is just 100 million shy of Facebook's usage figure, giving Facebook a 90 percent share of all social networkers. In contrast to the very biggest players of all -- Facebook (900m+ users), Twitter (200m+ users) and LinkedIn (120m+ users) -- the rest of the playing field is heavily localized, with services like QQ in China, Vkontakte in Russia, Mixi in Japan, and Google's Orkut in Brazil, India, and Paraguay among those competing in the space, the ITU notes. The ITU, which is focused on telecoms regulation, flags social media in its report as an area of growing scrutiny for telecoms regulators: not only are social networks becoming more ubiquitous, but services like Facebook are becoming communications mediums in their own right, with voice and text offerings that go head-to-head against similar services from carriers.
9:07
Kickstarter Exposes 70,000 Unlaunched Projects

According to the Kickstarter API blog, a bug caused 70,000 unlaunched projects to be publicly visible over the weekend, allowing folks to see goals, funding plans, and descriptions on projects that haven't yet appeared on the site. Of the 70,000, visitors only viewed 48. The bug exposed no financial information.

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TechCrunch (30 unread)