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What Facebook Can Give Back To The Web
Dec 26, 4:28AM
In Time's Person of the Year 2010 article on Mark Zuckerberg, one fact shouts out to me above all others: 1 in 4 Web pages in the United States is now viewed behind the walls of Facebook. I enjoy Facebook and would be happy spending a quarter of my Web life there, if I could leave Facebook for the other 75%. But even if I log out completely, most of the Web's most popular sites are tied to Facebook, through Share or Like or Connect buttons. Facebook is not just another Web site: it is a service that "Facebookizes" every Web site it touches, making me bring all of my friends with me, like luggage. It's disconcerting being on a Web site that I'm used to browsing anonymously, and seeing my friends' faces there. And so I have a holiday wish: Facebook, let me dance if I want to, let me leave my friends behind. For the last twenty years, we've enjoyed One Web that is united through the common policy of letting us be whoever we want to be, wherever we go. One Web allows us at times to be cooler than we are in real life, aspirational, anonymous, and/or fanatical about a particular subject. And that is why the Web is wonderful.
With a New Version, FLUD Hopes to Take on Pulse And Flipboard as Your iPad News Reader
Dec 26, 3:40AM
News aggregators and RSS feeds have been around for awhile now, but only with the rapid proliferation of touch technology on mobile devices and tablets, have we started moving closer to a truly appealing news feed experience. For the average web user, the traditional staid design and text-and-headline-heavy interface of the RSS feed and feed aggregators have offered user experiences to be endured rather than enjoyed. News apps for both the iPhone and iPad, like Pulse and Flipboard, have garnered quite a bit of attention of late for disrupting the aggregation and RSS reader experience by offering up new, intriguing ways of representing data. But when it comes to news consumption, I'd rather look to feeds emanating from editorially directed and curated magazines and websites, rather than a template populated by Facebook and Twitter such as Flipboard—or a design and user experience that is a bit sexier than Pulse—and I'd love to have quality versions on my iPhone (that have true staying power). This is why I've recently become a fan of FLUD, which allows users to plug in feeds from favorite sites (like TechCrunch, ahem) and read, peruse, and share articles through a neatly-presented, tile-based interface—for free. And unlike Flipboad, FLUD is on both the iPad and iPhone—and it's coming soon to Android and the desktop.
Santa Brings Bump Its Biggest Day Of Sharing Ever, Swapping 20 Photos A Second
Dec 26, 3:36AM
As every iPhone developer knows, Christmas Day is the busiest day of the year, as millions of people unwrap their shiny new iPhones and promptly go on an app download spree (I'm sure Android sees a similar phenomenon). Which means it isn't terribly surprising when Bump, a Sequoia-backed startup that makes it easy to share data between phones, says that today is the biggest day of traffic it's ever had. Then again, the fact that people are currently sharing 20 photos per second is quite impressive. Bump CEO David Lieb says that Bump's traffic is currently 2.4 times as high as it was a week ago, and that the service is on pace for 2 million shared items today, with a peak load of 30 items per second (in addition to swapping photos, you can share music, contact information, and calendar events using Bump).
UWall.Tv Turns YouTube Into Your Own MTV
Dec 26, 2:33AM
Frustrated with how difficult it is to search YouTube for music videos, Argentinian web developer and Taggify.net co-founder Sebastian Vaggi has created UWall.tv. UWall.tv allows you to search by artist, song or by music category like Vevo, with the added benefit of creating a custom music video playlist based on your search. Once you set it motion, Uwall.tv plays your search-derived playlist chronologically without you having to refresh, whether you're in full screen mode or not. 
Flickr Should Have Built Instagram. But They Didn't. Here's Why.
Dec 26, 2:00AM
Back in June, we reported on the departure of Kellan Elliott-McCrea from Yahoo. While not hugely known outside the developer community, we had received several tips indicating just how important Elliott-McCrea was to the Flickr team, where his role as "Architect" was supposedly "vital" to the service. So who better to answer questions about Flickr than Elliott-McCrea (who is now the VP of Engineering for Etsy), right? And that's exactly what he's done on Quora. Specifically, someone asked the question: Why did Flickr miss the mobile photo opportunity that Instagram and picplz are pursuing? The mobile photo space is red-hot right now with several players beyond the two mentioned vying to become a common app on smartphones. And one of them, Instagram, was able to gain over a million users in less than three months. So why wasn't Flickr, with all the resources of Yahoo behind them, able to dominate this space first?
Happy Birthday: Jesus Is almost Bigger than Angry Birds (TCTV)
Dec 25, 5:00PM
How do you get more kids reading the Bible? The so-called "Jesus Phone" of course! A company called YouVersion launched a mobile, interactive version of the Bible two years ago that got some attention when it won the people's choice DemoPit award at TechCrunch50 in 2009. Today it runs on eight platforms, is in the top ten iTunes apps overall and has more than 12 million users across eight mobile platforms. It was bigger than Angry Birds at the time we shot the video below, and then Angry Birds had a great December. But hey, close to Angry Birds is still pretty good.
Mobclix: Android Impressions Grew By 420 Percent In 2010; iPhone Up 347 Percent
Dec 25, 1:59PM
Recently acquired mobile ad exchange Mobclix is releasing its 2010 report, which takes a look at the top trend in the mobile advertising space. 2010 has been a big year for mobile advertising companies and startups, with the Google-AdMob deal approved, Apple's Quattro buy and iAds launch, Millennial's fast growth and more. Unsurprisingly, the trend that tops Mobclix's report is the platform war between Apple and Google over the iPhone versus Android. Mobclix says that impressions on Android phones via Mobclix's platform grew by 420 percent over the past year whereas iPhone impressions grew by 347 percent for the same 12 month period. Another interesting trend highlighted by the report is that real-time bidding for mobile ad space is becoming more widely adopted by publishers and developers as the optimal way to fill space. Mobclix says that real time bidding inventory is expected to make up 10% – 15% of total ad buys for 2011. In fact, 50% of all targeted online ad display platforms will be powered through real time platforms by 2015.
Today Is The Last Day For Crunchie Nominations!
Dec 24, 11:03PM
The Crunchie Awards, which are co-hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat, are pretty much my favorite part about TechCrunch. That being said, today is everyone's last day to nominate your favorite companies, products and people (yourself included) for one of the 20 different awards categories. Act fast, because at 11:59PM PST on Christmas Eve (tonight) our developer Vineet Thandar is going to flip the switch from his makeshift office in Lake Tahoe and you'll miss your chance to have a say in who deserves to be celebrated for the best tech accomplishments of 2010.
Theopeninter.net, A Visual Guide To Net Neutrality
Dec 24, 10:02PM
With Theopeninter.net, web designer Michael Ciarlo has given you the holiday gift of being able to explain to the less web savvy members of your friends and family what net neutrality means (basically) and why exactly laymen should care about the FCC's recent attempts to create "enforcable" Internet regulations. And while granted there's a lot more complexity surrounding the issue than "All ISPs are inherently evil and want to charge you for Skype." Theopeninter.net does, as Reddit commenter lolinyerface (yeah I know) put it, "The job of showing how things we get for free now, could one day be per item additional cost."
Just In Time To Pig Out For The Holidays, Foodspotting Beta Hits On Android
Dec 24, 8:52PM
It was exactly one year ago today that Foodspotting sent out the first test build of their app to a few iPhone users. Today they're finally doing the same for Android — and they're opening the beta up to everyone. Yes, the application which allows you to take pictures of your favorite foods and share them with a community of foodies is finally moving beyond the iPhone. When we first wrote about the app last March, people were already asking for an Android version in the comments. But the small team had their hands full developing the iPhone version and working on their website. But this past August, when announcing their new round of seed funding, Foodspotting revealed that work had begun on the Android version. And now here it is.
The Year In Online Video Deals And What To Expect In 2011
Dec 24, 8:28PM
With the recent rumor that Google's YouTube unit was looking at acquiring video content company Next New Networks, it's clear that anything can happen in the rapidly growing online video space. While some are shocked to see that Google may cross over and own content, the rumor does sound plausible. Loaded with nearly $25M in venture financing, it's not quite the initial public offering that some of their investors were hoping for, but let's face it, an exit to Google is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, while you can blame Sarbanes Oxley or a lack of credible initial public offering (IPO) candidates, it is likely that 2011 will come and go with very few, if any, major liquidity events in the public markets for online video startups. As such, the most likely path to liquidity for venture capitalists (VCs) remains mergers and acquisitions (M&A). With VCs having invested in so many online video startups and industry revenues still not matching the lofty expectations that whet VCs appetites in the first place, a lot of boards will cash out in 2011 when buyers come knocking. 
I Wish You a Merry – and Joyfully Analogue – Christmas
Dec 24, 7:37PM
Tis the night - or day, if you're in the US - before Christmas - at least for those who live in the majority-Christian bits of the world - and all through the house - or in my case, hotel - not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. The mouse, after all, is dead. There are plety of things I love about spending Christmas in the UK - snow,repeats of old TV shows I haven't seen since this time last year, Christmas crackers - but more than all of that, I love the fact that Christmas is one of the last parts of the year that remains mostly analogue.
Take The Red Pill: The Rise Of The Hybrid Startup
Dec 24, 6:27PM
Several years ago, before Gilt, One King's Lane and Zulily, I argued that some of the most valuable, disruptive tech startups would be in commerce, not advertising, cutting out the middle man rather than adding another one. It's fair to say that 2010's fastest-growing technology companies have largely been examples of this trend. Now there's a second trend emerging in 2011 that seems at least as important: the hybrid business, with one foot in the virtual world and one foot in the real world. This isn't the old "clicks-and-mortar" concept from the 1990s, which put web glitter on an old-school business, building Walmart.com for Walmart. A hybrid business is built entirely from scratch, to be innovative in its online technology and its real-world operations. 
WITN: The Dumbest and Smartest People of 2010, Plus Our Predictions for 2011 (TCTV)
Dec 24, 5:57PM
With apologies to Car Talk, you've squandered a perfectly good half-of-a-year watching "Why Is This News?" and we decided to reward you with a show that actually contains business analysis, rather than a rant about hotels or the hijinks of Michael Arrington. In this week's episode Paul and Sarah give their picks for the dumbest and smartest people of 2010, a slam-dunk prediction for 2011 and a Hail Mary prediction for 2011. We know you'll remind us of the ones we forgot in the comments. The downside of doing a year-end episode is it's filmed without the help of TCTV's crack editing team. Forgive a few rough transitions, but we wanted to keep this episode short....well, short for us. We know you people have family to hug, Holiday dinners to eat and presents to unwrap.
Facebook Overthrows Yahoo To Become The World's Third Largest Website
Dec 24, 5:25PM
We've seen this one coming all year. Facebook is now the third largest website in the world, taking the No. 3 spot from Yahoo, according to comScore. Facebook drew an estimated 648 million unique visitors from across the globe in November, 2010, compared to 630 million for Yahoo. In October the two sites were dead even with 633 million worldwide unique visitors each (actually Facebook had already passed Yahoo by a smidgeon in October with about half a million more visitors). The only two Web properties left which are bigger than Facebook are Microsoft (869 million worldwide visitors) and Google (970 million) when you look at all of their sites collectively. The evidence leading up to this overthrow has been building up for a long time. Facebook became the fourth largest Website in the world nearly 18 months ago, and quickly passed Yahoo in pageviews. Today, Facebook accounts for nearly a quarter of all display ads in the U.S., which is more than twice as much as Yahoo. 
TechCrunch Giveaway: A Google Nexus S #TechCrunch
Dec 24, 5:13PM
We have a Christmas surprise for all of you. As you have seen us do in the past, we feel it's only fair to give away some of the new, fancy, amazing items we so often write about, and this time we are giving away a Google Nexus S to one lucky reader. You can read our full review on it here or watch Erick Schonfeld and John Biggs review it on Fly or Die (also embedded below). It is really simple to set up, includes all of Google's various apps (like 3D Maps and Google Voice), and is incredibly fast. Simply put, this is the best Android phone on the market right now. You want it? To enter is simple. Just fan the TechCrunch Facebook page and then do one of these two things: retweet this post (making sure to include the #TechCrunch hashtag), or leave a comment below telling us why you think this phone needs to be yours. 
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad App World
Dec 24, 3:02PM
Editor's note: Contributor Jon Evans is an author and software engineer. He hails from the Great White North, but we let him write here anyway. Report from the app-development trenches: it's gettin' kinda crazy out there. I've lost track of how many NDAs I've signed this year from people with app ideas. Old coworkers and previous clients have deluged me with so many offers of new work I can't possibly take it all. Friends of friends want my opinion on whether their app notion might fly, and if I might want to partner with them. The VP at my client Xtreme Labs has as his Gmail status, "I'm hiring 50 Agile Engineers." That doesn't include their startup incubator Xtreme University. And this isn't frenetic Silicon Valley, this is once-sleepy Toronto. My clients HappyFunCorp, an incubator/development consultancy in Brooklyn, proclaim on their web site, "We can only take on so much work, and because of that, there's no contact information on our page." None of my developer friends are underemployed. Supply is low, demand is insane. I realize the plural of anecdote is not data, but I can't help thinking: this feels a lot like 1999.
12 Days Of Christmas: Nook Color Giveaway
Dec 24, 1:47PM
Reading and books: probably the most fantastic gifts possible. That said, the Nook Color can do books, magazines, simple games, and browse the web all on an Android system. It's been called an iPad light and that's a great description, really. Normally these run $249.99 in Barnes & Nobel stores, but as the last item in our 12 Days of Christmas giveaway extravaganza, it's going to one of our lucky reader for nothing more than the cost of a comment. Of course B&N stores are still open today and the Nook Color along with its e-ink counterparts are likely still available if last minute shopping is on your to-do list. They are great devices. Also, consider this last call for our big ticket giveaway: one stunning gaming system from Digital Storm worth nearly $2,300. Both the computer and Nook Color giveaway end tonight at 11:59pm PST. Click through for the instructions and rules.
eBay's Top Holiday Product Searches: Nintendo Wii; Xbox Kinect And Ugly Christmas Sweaters
Dec 24, 1:22PM
E-commerce giant eBay sees a massive amount of searches every day—the company just announced that it handled more than 2 billion U.S. product searches in the third quarter alone. For the same time period, comScore reports that Amazon saw 847 million searches, while Google handled only 226 million product searches. Similar to the fact that top Google searches can show what's trending during a specific time, eBay's searches can show us what is popular in terms of e-commerce at a given time. The company has releases data on the top product searches on the marketplace during the holiday shopping season (Dec. 1 through Dec. 22). During the time period, the top three products that saw the largest spike in searches (in order) are the Nintendo Wii Console, Xbox Kinect, and "Ugly Christmas Sweater." 
Jajah Founder Taps Opera Singer To Tease New Mobile Payments Startup Jumio
Dec 24, 10:48AM
After selling his latest company, Jajah, to Telefonica for $207 million a year ago, co-founder Daniel Mattes has set his sights on the electronic payments market. Mattes, who has apparently been baptized the "Bill Gates of the Alps", has started a new company called Jumio.
FlipTrack / Moblyng Raising $10.9 Million For HTML5 Games For Mobile Devices
Dec 24, 10:10AM
Once a company focused on building a slideshow creation tool, FlipTrack in May 2008 decided to change its name to Moblyng and shift its core reason for being to bringing Flash objects to mobile phones. Today, the company seems to have pivoted a third time, now developing cross-platform HTML5 games for mobiles devices. And according to this SEC filing, the company is currently raising nearly $10.9 million, having already secured about $7.5 million for the round.
Zumbox Raises $9.7 Million More For Paperless Postal System
Dec 24, 9:38AM
Zumbox, a privately held company that offers a digital mailbox and filing system based on your street address, has raised a little over $9.7 million in venture capital, according to this SEC filing. In August 2009, Zumbox announced that it had raised $8 million from a number high-profile investors, including Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Walt Disney and Rick Braddock, the former CEO of Priceline.com. 
Sales Performance Management Software Maker Callidus Buys ForceLogix For $3.75M
Dec 24, 9:14AM
Callidus Software, which markets Sales Performance Management (SPM) software solutions, has announced its intent to acquire all of the assets of its technology partner ForceLogix. Through the acquisition, Callidus says it gains a solid sales coaching and talent development technology platform, and the ability to extend its footprint to provide the most comprehensive offering of on-demand sales talent lifecycle management solutions. 
Yandex Acquires WebVisor's Behavior Analysis Technology, Team
Dec 24, 9:00AM
Yandex, the leading Russian search engine, has acquired WebVisor, a Russian startup, after holding an "open day for startups" to pitch the search company. WebVisor provides visitor behavior analysis (mouse movement, clicks, text copying etc.) and will be integrated with the company's own visitor statistics tool, Yandex.Metrica. Terms were not disclosed. Yandex says the WebVisor team has joined the company to work on merging their technology into its own framework. WebVisor will keep servicing existing clients, but the service will not accept new customers going forward.
Facebook Lets You j.mp Again, After Massive Spam And Malware Concerns
Dec 24, 8:48AM
As we reported yesterday, Facebook for a while blocked all j.mp short URLs provided by parent company bit.ly in status and page updates. Asked for more information, Facebook said it was working with bit.ly to resolve the issue, and that more than 70% of j.mp links pointed to spam or "other security issues" at the time the block was imposed. Thanks to our original tipster on the story, William Albano, we've now learned that j.mp links can now again be posted to Facebook walls worldwide.
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