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Hitwise: Facebook Accounts For 1 In 4 Page Views In The U.S.
Nov 19, 10:03PM
Hitwise has released another staggering data point in favor of Facebook's domination today. According to Hitwise's data, 1 in 4 page views in the US took place on Facebook.com as of last week. In March, Hitwise reported that Facebook overcame Google to become the largest website in the U.S. with 7.07% of all U.S. visits. Google was second at 7.03% at the time. As of September, comScore reported that Facebook was behind Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. 
Accel Selling Big Chunks Of Facebook Stock
Nov 19, 9:37PM
Sometime in the last week or so, we've heard from multiple sources, Accel Partners has sold very significant chunks of Facebook stock. So significant, in fact, that their ownership percentage has dropped to a point where they are no longer the largest venture shareholder in the company. Prior to the sale they had somewhere around 10% of Facebook. They paid just $12.7 million for that stock, in 2005. Our understanding is they sold somewhere around 20% of that position, meaning they own 8% or so of Facebook now. So who bought it, and what was the price?
Two Chinese Online Video Sites Going Public: Which Should Investors Buy? (TCTV)
Nov 19, 9:29PM
Bill Bishop, an investor and consultant based in Beijing, joined me via Skype to talk about this white-hot Chinese Interent IPO market, that's even welcoming unprofitable companies into the Nasdaq. "It's been a crazy couple months, and it looks like it will be crazier through Christmas," he says. "The goldrush is back." One of the most interesting corners of that goldrush is online video. Between dozens of competitors, soaring bandwidth costs, piracy issues and government crackdowns, this has been one of the harder areas for Chinese upstarts to succeed and more than a dozen have died. A lot of Silicon Valley money has died with them. But left standing are YouKu and Tudou and both have filed paperwork to go public.
What's New At Tumblr: Funding, Hires, Office, Board Member, And A Focus On Fashion
Nov 19, 9:27PM
For the past several weeks, there's been a lot of talk about a large new round of funding that the social startup Tumblr was raising. That culminated today with a report in Fortune with numbers on the round. We had been hearing very similar numbers — around $25 million on a $100 million pre-money evaluation — but it turns out those numbers were likely low, we had heard from sources close to the funding. But while the numbers are still a bit up in the air, we do know that as Fortune and Business Insider reported earlier, Sequoia Capital is leading this new round. And we've heard that previous investors Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures are on board once again. Further, like Business Insider, we're hearing that Sequoia's Roelof Botha will join Tumblr's Board as a part of this investment, which will likely close in the next couple of weeks.
Q&A Site Formspring Lands Another $10 Million
Nov 19, 8:48PM
Q&A site Formspring, which raised $2.5 million in Series A funding back in March, reportedly closed its Series B this morning in a $10 million round led by Geoff Yang at Redpoint Ventures. This most recent financing pegs the company at a $45 million dollar valuation. Formspring is yet another player in the Q&A space piquing investor interest. Since its launch in November, the service now boasts over 16 million registered members, 40 million monthly uniques and around one billion questions answered. Quora, another buzzed about Q&A site, is much much smaller at a modest 200,000 monthly uniques.
The TechCrunch Guide to the Web 2.0 Summit
Nov 19, 8:36PM
The seventh annual Web 2.0 Summit wrapped up yesterday after an exciting week of panels, interviews, and discussions at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The star-spangled lineup for this year's events included Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, and big-ticket investors like John Doerr and Fred Wilson. For Web 2.0's theme this year, conference co-organizers Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle chose "points of control," explaining, "Fifteen years and two recessions into the commercial Internet, it's clear that our industry has moved into a competitive phase—a 'middlegame' in the battle to dominate the Internet Economy. At this year's Web 2.0 Summit, we're focusing on these shifting points of control—strategic chokepoints on an increasingly crowded board."
In The Giving Mood, Amazon Also Unveils MP3 Gifting (That Can Magically Become Amazon Gift Cards)
Nov 19, 8:11PM
Earlier today, we noted that Amazon unveiled a new way to give people Kindle books as gifts. They're also launching the same functionality for their Music Store as well, with MP3 Gifting. To be honest, it's a little surprising that Amazon didn't have this feature before. But it comes with a nice little bonus that only someone like Amazon can offer: if you receive an MP3 as a gift and decide you don't want it, you can instead opt for an Amazon credit for the same amount, which you can use towards any product they offer.
Anonymously Chat With Other College Students On HowRandom
Nov 19, 7:23PM
HowRandom, a site for college students, launches today with one core feature -- the ability to anonymously chat with people from other schools. There's no photo uploading, file sharing or video capabilities, just a text entry line and a chat widget. The student on student communication happens on two levels, a test function where you casually enter in your school (warning, you have to type the full word "university") and a verified function which allows you to type in your .edu address in order to get "Verified" as a bona fide college student. 
Resolute Marine Wins Startup Open, Converts Wave Energy To Clean Water And Power
Nov 19, 7:16PM
Resolute Marine Energy— a Boston startup whose technology harnesses wave energy for power generation, and transports seawater to on-shore desalination facilities— won Global Entrepreneurship Week's inaugural Startup Open, the competition's directors revealed today. As their prize, co-founders and core team members of Resolute Marine receive an all-expenses-paid, one-day trip to the island owned by Sir Richard Branson where they will embark on a Maverick Business Adventure.
Peter Thiel: Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin Did A Poor Job, Got Rich Anyway
Nov 19, 6:37PM
[UPDATE: We spoke to Peter Thiel today who felt his comments on Saverin were taken out of context and exaggerated. He clarified, "I don't have a strong opinion on his work performance, but I do think that he did very well during his very short time at Facebook. I didn't mean it to be a hit on him."] As far as I know, and my Web searching skills can take me, early Facebook investor Peter Thiel hasn't yet publicly commented on the role of Eduardo Saverin, who co-founded and initially bankrolled 'thefacebook' back in the early days. Well, Thiel did exactly that, on The Big Think (video below). Asked who Saverin is, Thiel says he was "affiliated, quasi-employed at Facebook in 2004". The fun doesn't stop there.
Survey: Consumers Choose Cyber Monday Over Black Friday
Nov 19, 6:21PM
Black Friday, or the day after Thanksgiving, has always been known as one of the year's biggest holiday shopping days. But in the past five years, Cyber Monday, the Monday following Thanksgiving, has become a a serious shopping day for online sales and promotions. Last year, Cyber Monday brought in $887 million in sales compared to $595 million in online spending on Black Friday. Today, Compete is releasing a survey that indicates that once again consumers could be choosing Cyber Monday for shopping as opposed to Black Friday. According to Compete's data, 45% of respondents indicated they will do their holiday shopping on Cyber Monday, versus 37% who plan to shop on Black Friday. Interestingly, Black Friday shoppers are planning to spend more money than Cyber Monday shoppers, with Black Friday shoppers averaging an expected $353 and Cyber Monday shoppers averaging an expected $233. 
Video Review: The Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360
Nov 19, 5:47PM
Oh, Microsoft. You just can't seem to help but be the last one to every party you attend. You launched the Kin just as messenger phones began to die, then you launched Windows Phone 7 when the smartphone wars were so far underway that most folks had already declared an allegiance. And now you've got your motion gaming platform, the Kinect, hitting the shelves years after the Nintendo Wii and months after the Playstation Move. I've spent the last week living with a Kinect in my life. How does it fare? Find out after the jump.
Web Video Hogs Up 37 Percent Of Internet Traffic During Peak TV Hours
Nov 19, 5:29PM
A few weeks ago, some data came out suggesting that Netflix alone accounts for 21 percent of Internet traffic during peak TV hours. But if you add in a couple other sources of streaming video from the Web, namely YouTube and other forms of Flash video, the traffic share of Web video jumps to 37 percent (with 10 percent from YouTube and 6 percent fro Flash video). BitTorrent is another 8 percent, with much of that being video as well. These startling numbers were put together in a slide by Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker during her presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit earlier this week. All HTTP web traffic is only 23 percent of the total. 
Groupon Sues Fellow Group Buying Site MobGob Over 9-Year-Old Patent
Nov 19, 5:28PM
Group buying site Groupon is suing one of the many small startups trying to emulate its successful social shopping model over a patent that was originally filed over a decade ago. The target of the lawsuit is MobGob, which enables people to use their existing social networks to gather their purchasing powers and collectively buy goods or services from sellers online. The complaint is embedded below. Groupon alleges that MobGob infringes one of its patents by operating a system for aggregating demand for the purchase of a product by a number of individual buyers. 
LinkedIn Upgrades iPhone App With New Inbox And Recent Activity In Profiles
Nov 19, 4:08PM
LinkedIn has just updated its iPhone app with better communication capabilities, focusing on improving the inbox and recent activity of connections. The iPhone app includes a newly designed inbox that allows you easily navigate the messages you have received on LinkedIn. At the bottom of the app you tap to access both sent and archived messages in your account. 
It's On: It's Four Loko Time
Nov 19, 2:58PM
Here it comes! The Swill-Drinking Event of the Season! I will drink, over the course of an hour not one but two Four Lokos. You can watch me here or pop over to the main page to chat. I'll also show off the Galaxy Tab and the NookColor while I do it, but those are ancillary to our goals. Why am I doing this? Partially because it's funny and partially to express outrage at the potential FDA ban as well as outrage at Four Loko for releasing this junk into the wild. But then again, who am I to judge? I used to drink far worse in my college days and I worry that my aged carapace will shutter and fall in onto my emaciated, jerky-tough body like the Skeksis in Dark Crystal. 
You Can Now Gift Anyone With An E-mail Address A Kindle Book
Nov 19, 2:34PM
With the holiday shopping season in full swing, retailers are clamoring to publicize their sales, deals and more. Amazon issued a release today that customers can now give any of the 725,000 Kindle books to anyone with an email address. So a recipient doesn't need a Kindle to even receive an e-book. The normally data shy Amazon also revealed that the Kindle is the most gifted item in the company's history, and that "millions" of people are using the Kindle or Kindle apps to read books. Of course, those without a Kindle can read their e-books on the Kindle App for the iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android devices. Gifters can choose a book in the Kindle Store, and send give the e-book as a gift by simply inserting the recipient's email address. Recipients can redeem the gift in the Kindle Store to read on any Kindle or free Kindle app.
Amazon.com Adds New Visual Search Capability To Its Online Shoe Stores
Nov 19, 2:30PM
Amazon.com this morning announced fresh visual search capability in its men's and women's shoe stores. Basically, the feature allows Amazon customers to search and browse for shoes based on how they look (example). The styles are presented graphically as silhouettes within the existing navigation of search refinement, allowing customers to easily handpick shoe shapes from a pre-defined palette without the need to know what the styles are called.
CrunchGear Drives The All-Electric Audi R8 E-tron Supercar [Video]
Nov 19, 2:24PM
The first ever electric vehicle with Quattro is still a few years away, but we were invited to Ingolstadt, Germany to try one out. E-tron is the name of Audi's new line of electric vehicles including an R8 and an A1. We didn't get to drive the red concept E-tron that's all over the internet, instead we drove one that looked and drove more like a real production car. The supercar was pretty interesting to drive even though it's not complete. The main difference is that nowhere in the car is a gasoline engine, instead batteries take up the place of the engine and electric motors power the wheels. There are four electric motors, one for each wheel, combined to offer a peak output of 313 hp and 3319 lb-ft of torque and will propel this futuristic transport to 100 km/h in 4.8 sec--not bad for an electric. Not only is the acceleration fast and linear, but the E-tron R8 keeps all the driving character that made the gas R8 so fun to drive. The Quattro system is a bit more relaxed on this car versus something like an A4, keeping the torque balance at 30/70 front to rear means more fun if you have the skills.
Group Deal Platform NimbleCommerce Is Ready For Its Closeup
Nov 19, 2:00PM
Given the massive success of Groupon (and the huge number of clones out there), it's no surprise that existing publishers and businesses are keen to take advantage of the craze themselves. Some of them have turned to white-label deal services, which allow these publishers to manage their deals without having to reinvent the wheel. And today a company called NimbleCommerce is making its press debut by announcing that it's got deals with "25 large newspapers; business directories and local media companies". You'll notice I put that in quotes — NimbleCommerce won't list off many of the companies it's partnered with, but says that 50% of its clients are publicly traded and that it is "five to ten times bigger than Tippr" and other close competitors. Again, they won't give hard stats, but the clients NimbleCommerce can name are solid: OpenTable uses its platform to run deals, as does Valpak and Canada's Yellow Pages. 
First Look At The Jolibook: Cloudy With A Chance Of Lightning Speed (Video)
Nov 19, 1:27PM
France-based Jolicloud's Jolibook will reportedly hit the (UK) market starting today at a £279 price point (roughly $380). I'm one of the first to have received a review unit, which runs the all-new version of the company's eponymous Linux-based cloud OS, Jolicloud 1.1. I'm not much of a hardware reviewer, unlike the CrunchGear team, but fortunately there isn't all that much to review when it comes to the hardware. All in all, it's a pretty standard package for a small-sized computer at a fairly steep price considering it doesn't include Windows, which many, far cheaper netbooks with the same configuration do. Still, Jolicloud 1.1 is the reason I'd recommend some people - not everyone, and mainly people who travel a lot and have made the switch to Web-based applications for most of their work-related or personal activities already - to purchase a Jolibook, over any netbook that comes with Windows in that - rumored - price range.
Twitter Testing A New "People" Tab: All Your Social Graph Steroids In One Place
Nov 19, 4:43AM
Since the launch of New Twitter in September, things have been pretty quiet on the new feature front. Yes, they're testing out a new analytics product, but in terms of features that the majority of end users will use, Twitter has mainly been letting people get used to the new layout of things. But now they've started testing something new. A new top nav tab called "People". The area, which Twitter has confirmed their testing among a limited number of users, is basically a way to pull together all of the work they've done with features like "Who to follow" and "Similar to". This new area, which resides to the right of the Messages tab, is all about finding new users to follow.
YC-Funded Fabricly Is A Threadless For High Fashion, And It Just Raised $400K
Nov 19, 3:56AM
I can't say I know a whole lot about fashion. But, having accidentally walked into a few boutiques over the years, I've gathered one thing: it's expensive. And I'm told it's also a very competitive market — designers vie to have their products manufactured by clothiers, who in turn have the question of whether consumers will actually buy their products looming large. These clothing companies do have outlets like Gilt Groupe in case they wind up with excess inventory, but there's always significant risk involved whenever a new item is produced. Now Y Combinator-funded startup Fabricly wants to reverse and improve the model, by crowdsourcing designs and using a voting process to only manufacture pieces that people actually want, all while saving customers a bundle. The company also has some funding news to announce: it's recently raised a seed round of $400,000 from Atomico Ventures.
Sarah Palin's Kids: The Complete Lack of Online Self-Control Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree
Nov 19, 2:51AM
Oh, the crazy Palins. If it isn't crazy Sarah, it's crazy Todd. And if it isn't crazy Todd, it's their crazy, dysfunctional kids. And so it was this week when Willow and Bristol Palin took to a teenager's Facebook wall to protest his review of their mom's TV show, "At Home With The Palins". Of course, it's only right and proper that kids want to defend their mother even if, as is frequently the case with Palin, her words are generally indefensible (hell even Elizabeth Báthory probably got a mothers' day card). But unfortunately, the language used in the Palin kids' rebuke to the claim that "Sarah Palin's Alaska, is failing so hard right now" was somewhat - shall we say - unfortunate. "Haha your so gay," posted Willow in response to the kid (identified only as 'Tre') "I have no idea who you are, But what I've seen pictures of, your disgusting ... My sister had a kid and is still hot." For clarification, she added... "Tre stfu. Your such a faggot."
NRG To Build Network Of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Throughout Texas
Nov 19, 2:45AM
NRG Energy— a wholesale generator and publicly traded company— announced plans to build a network of 150 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in Houston starting in February 2011, then to expand this network throughout Texas and the United States. According to the most recent, annual Green Cities Index, 78% of Houston commuters drive alone, and the city ranked 38th, meaning it is one of the worst out of 43 measured U.S. cities in terms of air quality.
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