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*AD HERE* TripAdvisor: Plan *AD HERE* Your Vacation *AD HERE* Here *AD HERE* Please
Nov 13, 4:06AM
So, LeWeb '10 is coming up. Let's say you're looking for some good ideas of where to stay and what to do in Paris while you're there. Where are you most likely to turn on the web? Google. A search for "paris vacation" yields TripAdvisor as the top result. You click on that link. Oh. My. God.
Why Is mail.facebook.com Pointing To An Outlook Web App Login?
Nov 13, 3:00AM
This whole Facebook Mail thing is getting curiouser and curiouser. After our post on Facebook taking control of fb.com, a number of people have reached out to say that mail.fb.com actually resolved to mail.thefacebook.com (that doesn't seem to be the case for all people). What's interesting about that is that mail.thefacebook.com (and mail.facebook.com) is live for all to see. It's an Outlook Web App with a nice big Facebook logo that asks you for a username and password.
Yep, Facebook Takes Control Of Fb.com Ahead Of Mail Launch
Nov 13, 1:05AM
Project Titan is coming. On Monday. That's what we've heard from sources with knowledge of Facebook's secret mail project. And since we broke that news, there has been a lot of speculation about what domain Facebook might use for these new email addresses. Currently, the popular choice is fb.com. But while it seemed like Facebook acquired it earlier this year, no one knew for sure. Now it looks like we do. As the site Domain Name Wire points out, the Whois record for the domain name has just been updated. While Markmonitor.com is still listed as the registrar name, Facebook is all over the records now as well. Most importantly, the domain namespace servers are now pointing to facebook.com. And Facebook is listed as both the administrative and technical contact.
Ask a VC: How Kiteboarding and Venture Capital Became Less Risky (TCTV)
Nov 13, 1:02AM
My guest on Ask A VC this week is Bill Tai of Charles River Ventures. He's also a professional kiteboarder. You may ask: Why would a guy who has been a VC since 1991 need kiteboarding sponsors? That was my first question. Generally in this video we talk about how the venture business has changed during the last 20 years and how kiteboarding has changed over the last 10 years. There are a lot of parallels. Both games have become safer and more mainstream, but does that mean they're less fun? Video below.
Coincidence? Or Has this Tiny Indonesian Company Pushed Google into the Market Faster?
Nov 13, 12:50AM
Andy Sjarif has an almost weird, man-crush on Google. No matter what crazy things Eric Schmidt may promise shareholders, Sjarif is in no doubt that the great and mighty Google can achieve them. Self-driving cars? Trips to the moon? Wind farms? All in a day's work at the Googleplex. Google with its execution, its Ph.Ds and its algorithms is Sjarif's mahaguru. But - all that said - he still wants to slaughter them in the Indonesian market. To that end, his company Sitti has indexed more than 20 terabytes of data; comprising 12 million articles, 12 million Twitter accounts, 800 million pages of websites and blogs, 10 million Facebook conversations, 20 thousand words of slang and 2.7 billion Google search terms-- all in Bahasa Indonesia and all to make mathematical sense of Bahasa language context, so that it can match ads to content better than Google.
Aol To Unveil New Aol Mail On Sunday
Nov 12, 11:33PM
Aol (err, us, I guess) will relaunch Aol Mail on Sunday afternoon, we've confirmed from sources close to Aol (hah). The company is currently the no. 4 webmail provider with around 30 million users. We'll have a chance to play with it before then and post a full review along with a conflict disclosure. Things we know now - it's completely focused on speed, there will be a variety of domain names to choose from (not just aol.com) and it will be available on phoenix.aol.com. The old Aol Mail will stay available for the foreseeable future.
Why All The Interest In Tumblr? Try 1,540 Percent Pageview Growth
Nov 12, 11:19PM
Tumblr is attracting a lot of attention right now There is talk of a big funding round in the works and it is making significant hires. Why all the interest? Sometime last June, blogging service Tumblr hit an inflection point. It's visitors and pageviews just took off. According to comScore, Tumblr served up 1.2 billion pageviews in the U.S. in October, up a mind-boggling 1,540 percent from the year before (see chart above). Unique visitors from the U.S. hit 6 million, up 150 percent (see chart below). Worldwide visitors in September were around 14 million.
Boxcar 4.0 Pushes iPhone Notifications To The Next Level
Nov 12, 10:51PM
People say that I never say anything bad about the iPhone. Here's something: its notification system is awful. In particular, I'm talking about the way notifications are managed. They aren't. Any Push Notification that comes in overrides another one. Apps can get badged with updates, but you'll have no idea what's new. That's why Boxcar is a vital app. We've written about Boxcar a number of times over the past year or so. They're now launching version 4.0 of the app, and it's by far the best yet. The entire app has been overhauled from the ground up. The result is a killer management system for Push Notifications. Apple needs to buy this company.
Hunter Walk On YouTube By The Numbers And More (TCTV)
Nov 12, 9:41PM
We had the chance to interview YouTube Product Manager Hunter Walk at Gigaom's NewTeeVee conference and talk to him about some of the milestones YouTube has reached since it was founded in 2005 (Warning: My voice is LOUD). Along with the impressive statistic that there are now 50,000 hours of new video uploaded daily (35 hours of video uploaded every minute, up from 24 hours a minute a few months ago), Walk revealed that YouTube now boasts over 2 billion video playbacks a day, 150 million of those being on mobile devices.<
Founder Buys Free Gifts Back from SGN for Less than 10% of the Purchase Price [TCTV]
Nov 12, 9:07PM
Zachary Allia is just 26 years old. He's either really lucky, is a negotiating savant or a combination of both. Back in 2007 when Facebook first opened their platform, Allia and a graphic designer pal came up with the Free Gifts app-- mostly because he was a poor college kid and paying $1 to send someone a picture of a cake seemed exorbitant. He launched it and woke up the next morning to find it had 1 million users. It soared to ten million before he sold it to SGN in 2008. Three things are notable about that deal: It was for a small undisclosed amount but Allia owned 100% of the company at the time, so it was likely a life changing amount of money; he chose selling to SGN over selling to Zynga (doh!); and he came to regret the deal once SGN abandoned the product to move more towards games. When Facebook abdicated its own virtual gifts product last summer, Allia decided he wanted the company back. Getting it took some doing, as he explains in the exclusive interview with TechCrunchTV below.
How To Mass Export All Of Your Facebook Friends' Private Email Addresses
Nov 12, 8:42PM
A few days ago I requested that Facebook finally allow us to download email addresses for all of our friends. Facebook says this isn't allowed because you only own the data you add to Facebook, not data that your friends add. Their statement was, in part (entire statement here): 
At Least It's Not Facebook: A Google Director Departs To Become Loopt Exec
Nov 12, 8:19PM
Google is bleeding talent. As companies mature, that tends to happen. But the fact that a large number are defecting to rival Facebook clearly has Google worried — enough to offer massive retention bonuses and across-the-board salary increases. But it's not totally stopping the talent drain, as another Director of Engineering has left. But Google can relax a bit as at least he's not going to Facebook. Location-based service Loopt has hired Aditya Palande to be their new Vice President of Engineering. He's leaving Google after just about three and a half years there. Most recently, he was in charge of the entire portfolio of applications in the CRM space for the search giant. In total, he has about 20 years of engineering experience at various companies.
'Angry Birds' Toys, A Photo Essay Part 2 (Pig Edition)
Nov 12, 8:17PM
Hey it's Friday, and usually Fridays are when people send out the "more fun" press releases. Like the one we just got from Commonwealth Toys about the preorder release of Angry Birds plush toys at Shopangrybirds.com and Toywiz.com. The release said that industrious fans of the worlds #1 selling mobile game might be able to buy the birds in limited quantities at Suncoast and FYE retailers in "just a few days," whatever that means. Almost forgot the most important part! The email also included the first photos of the 'Angry Birds' pig characters. Behold the pigs, available in early 2011, below.
Pud Revisits His Past, Launches An Email Newsletter Platform With TinyLetter
Nov 12, 8:12PM
Email newsletters may be ready for a comeback. The fact is that despite the communications mechanism being old-school, publishers can put in less effort to get more views in an inbox than on a blog. AOL exec Bob Pittman has bet big on email newsletters, funding a number of media startups built around the form of communication. Philip Kaplan (a.k.a. Pud), the founder of FuckedCompany, AdBrite and Blippy, has created his own email newsletter platform called TinyLetter. TinyLetter is a dead simple way to create email newsletters. You pick out a name for your newsletter, and TinyLetter will create a URL to send to contacts via email, Facebook, Twitter and more so they can sign-up. You can then write your newsletter, customize your newsletters by design, add subscribers, read replies from subscribers and track old newsletters. You can also turn on the option to charge per month for your newsletter.
Limili Identifies That Song That's Playing, Adds It To Your Grooveshark Collection
Nov 12, 8:10PM
Between Soundhound and Shazam, I wouldn't have thought the world was really begging for another service that could identify that song playing on the radio. Sometimes, though, something comes along that solves that problem we didn't know we had and makes the whole thing worthwhile. You see, Soundhound and Shazam do a great job of identifying tracks.. but then what? You can buy the track on iTunes... which is great, for all the people who buy their music from iTunes. For folks who use services like Grooveshark, Spotify, or Rhapsody, though, that song they heard in the bar is gone from their noggin' by the time the next beer hits the table. Enter Limili.
NanoICE Gets A Cool $500,000 To Preserve Food (And Possibly Human Organs)
Nov 12, 7:55PM
A new SEC filing revealed today that NanoICE— a Seattle-area startup using molecular ice to chill and preserve meat, seafood and other raw materials as they are transported or stored— has secured a $500,000 investement (in the form of convertible debt financing). According to its website, the company's customers include fishing vessels and food retailers today. The systems sold by NanoICE produce molecular ice fractions, or ice crystals that are less than one micrometer in diameter. The "nanoice" can be delivered through something as small as a hypodermic needle, or in large quantities through hoses and pipes. NanoICE aims to curb food waste and end hunger, especially in the U.S., while displacing more energy-intensive refrigeration technology. 
As Funding Talk Swirls, Tumblr Lands A Director Of Product
Nov 12, 7:54PM
Earlier today, a Business Insider report indicated that Tumblr has landed a "very big and competitive" new round of funding from Sequoia Capital. We're still looking into that, and they're not commenting, but here's one thing we do know about the company: they've just hired a new Director of Product. Derek Gottfrid will be joining the company from The New York Times where he was the Senior Architect in charge of many of the interesting things they do with technology. It looks like today is his last day of work for the Times, and he'll be joining team Tumblr shortly, Tumblr President John Maloney confirms. "We're thrilled and excited about what Derek will bring to the team/product," Maloney writes in an email. Gottfrid had been with the Times for 12 years. 
Y Combinator Names First New Partners Since 2005: Paul Buchheit And Harj Taggar
Nov 12, 6:14PM
Prestigious startup incubator Y Combinator has just announced that it's adding two new partners: Paul Buchheit, who created Gmail and founded FriendFeed; and Harj Taggar, a former participant in the YC program who has been working there over the last year to help advise startups. Buchheit is the better known of the two — in addition to Gmail and FriendFeed, he also created the first prototype of Google's AdSense and coined its motto "Don't be evil". To take the new position Buchheit is leaving Facebook, which he joined last summer when the social network acquired his company Friendfeed.
Tatto Media Continues To Push Free Poster Scam
Nov 12, 5:42PM
Last month I wrote about a new scam that's performing extremely well among the Scamville crowd - a free poster that's tied to a $30/month ongoing credit card subscription. There's no disclosure of the ongoing credit card subscription anywhere on any of the checkout pages except in the terms and conditions via a link. People think they are just getting a poster for free, with a $.99 shipping charge. If you call the customer service phone number to cancel you are put on hold indefinitely (I was on hold 20 minutes before hanging up). And just to really put a cherry on top, you never even get the free poster (I didn't, and a lot of people complain about that). 
If You Want To Find Books In iTunes, Look In The App Store
Nov 12, 5:23PM
Buying a digital book for your iPad is a very odd experience. If you fire up iTunes, you can find music, movies, apps, even audiobooks, but there is no category for digital books. You need to first download the iBooks app, and then buy books within that app. So it is like a marketplace within a marketplace that also happens to be a reader. The Kindle app also works that way. It is confusing. But if you go into the App Store, you can find a whole category of iPad apps which are books. Many of them are interactive and tend to be children's books like Green Eggs And Ham ($3.99) or Miss Spider's Tea Party ($7.99). Increasingly, more and more books will end up in the App Store for a variety of reasons. The biggest one is simply because apps are more interesting. 
CrunchGear Reviews Dropcam Echo For Real-time Web Video Monitoring
Nov 12, 5:17PM
When I first wrote about Dropcam I was fairly excited. Why? Because I had been looking for a simple DVR/security system for my home so I could see if the FedEx guy was at the door. Dropcam appeared, disappeared, and then was launched a few months ago. In the interim I started using a Linksys wireless cam and Vitamin D and that has worked extremely well and then Logitech came out with their Alert system which took security to a whole other level. Dropcam, it seemed, was left in the dust. Now that I've tried the new Dropcam Echo, however, I find that it works well enough and the price, $279 with unlimited monitoring via the web or the attendant iPhone app, is acceptable if a little steep. 
Retailigence Is A Localeze For In-Store Product Inventory
Nov 12, 5:00PM
Using web applications to drive traffic to brick and mortar shopping stores is a strategy that seems to be paying off for retailers. In March, Forrester reported that the "online research, offline buying" consumer market represents $917 billion in consumer spending, which was 30 percent of all U.S. retail sales at that time. As more and more developers build applications for this market, there is a demand for product inventory and store location data. Enter Retailigence, a stealth startup incubated in the Founders Institute that applies the Localeze-model to in-store product inventory and listings. In conjunction with the startup's public launch, Retailigence is also announced that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Quest Venture Partners, Dave McClure, ZIG Capital, Global Brain Corporation and other angel investors. 
Automated News Comes To Sports Coverage Via StatSheet
Nov 12, 3:06PM
Here come the robo sports journalists. While people in the media biz worry about content mills like Demand Media and Associated Content spitting out endless SEO-targeted articles written by low-paid Internet writers, at least those articles are still written by humans. We may no longer need the humans, at least for data-driven stories. A startup in North Carolina, StatSheet, today is launching a remarkable network of 345 sports sites, one dedicated to each Division 1 college basketball tam in the U.S. For instance, there is a site for the Michigan State Spartans, North Carolina Tar Heels, and Ohio Buckeyes. Every story on each site was written by a robot, or to put it more precisely, by StatSheet's content algorithms. "The posts are completely auto-generated," says founder Robbie Allen. "The only human involvement is with creating the algorithms that generate the posts."
Apple Joins OpenJDK To Open Source Mac OS X Java Technology
Nov 12, 1:49PM
Apple just announced that it is joining Oracle's OpenJDK project to open source the Java technology for Mac OS X. OpenJDK is a free and open source implementation of the Java programming language. According to the release, Apple will "contribute most of the key components, tools and technology required for a Java SE 7 implementation on Mac OS X, including a 32-bit and 64-bit HotSpot-based Java virtual machine, class libraries, a networking stack and the foundation for a new graphical client." OpenJDK will open source Apple's Java technology to developers.
A World Of Tweets
Nov 12, 12:10PM
Chances are I'm late to the party, given how many Facebook 'likes' and retweets this project seems to have garnered already, but I hadn't yet seen it yet so here goes: Some folks over at frog design have hacked together A World Of Tweets, a Web-based app that visualizes geo-located tweets from around the globe.
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