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How To Make An 8-Bit Twitter Avatar
Jan 13, 7:59AM
It's a great story, inspired by an 8-bitted Dribbble post by UK artist and designer Harry Harrison, San Francisco interactive designers Addison Kowalski, Amadeus Demarzi and Courtney Guertin took the idea to the next level by 8 bit-ing their Twitter avatars, which inevitably went viral among the tech set, finally consuming MG Siegler and myself in a blaze of pixelated glory about a day ago.
There's Absolutely Nothing You Can Do About Spokeo, So Stop Whining
Jan 13, 7:51AM
There's been a surge of messages to us asking us to please write about and expose Spokeo, a company that collects and then sells your personal information. Mostly this is from all the mainstream press the service has been getting. Alarming stuff. "Please expose this like you did with ScamVille," read one message. Here's the deal. There's absolutely nothing you or I can do about it.
An iPhone On Verizon? Sold.
Jan 13, 7:20AM
Well, I hopped on a last-minute flight across the country, got stuck in a snow storm, had my flight home cancelled, had to find a new hotel, and now I think I'm getting sick. But it was all worth it. Because I got what I came for: the Verizon iPhone. Actually, I don't have one just yet. Like all non-Verizon customers, I'll have to wait until February 10 to get one (Verizon customers get access on February 3, which is a fairly classy move to reward loyalty). But I will have one soon enough. That's been the question asked of me the most these past two days: will I get the Verizon iPhone?
SalesCrunch: Pissing Us Off Isn't Much Of A PR Or Marketing Strategy
Jan 13, 5:10AM
Big news today with the announcement that Accel Partners and First Round Capital have money into a startup called SalesCrunch. Their products include CrunchConnect and SalesCrunch. Sounds kinda familiar. Our sites include TechCrunch, CrunchGear, CrunchBase, MobileCrunch, etc. A big deal? Not really. We've dealt with people using "Crunch" in their names before - sites like ArabCrunch, a blog about startups in the middle east that everyone thinks we own. Usually we just dismiss these people as jerks who want to leverage off our brand because it's not crowd pleasing to exercise intellectual property rights. AOL legal may or may not have a different position on it.
Kabbage Raises $6.7M To Give Online Merchants Working Capital To Grow Their Businesses
Jan 13, 5:00AM
Atlanta-based startup Kabbage has raised $6.65 million in new funding led by BlueRun Ventures with David Bonderman, founder of TPG Capital; Warren Stephens, CEO of Stephens Inc.; and the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund participating in the round. Kabbage is essentially a way for online merchants and sellers on marketplaces like eBay to get capital they otherwise wouldn't qualify for at a bank. Kabbage uses technology to analyze online merchants' sales and credit history; customer traffic and reviews; and prices and inventory compared to competitors. Via PayPal's Adaptive Payments API, Kabbage will make cash advances available to eBay and other online marketplace sellers fairly quickly (Kabbage says that many transactions take as little has ten minutes).
PC Shipments Recover Somewhat; Apple Share Jumps In U.S.
Jan 13, 3:26AM
The latest numbers for worldwide and US computer shipment sales have been made available by research group Gartner, and the results are about as interesting as they usually are; that is to say, a little. 2010 was a hard year in some ways, perhaps most so in that netbook sales, which boosted PC sales hugely in 2008 and to a lesser extent in 2009, have pretty much hit the wall. Tablets, or to be precise the iPad and the promise of other tablets, have done their work in taking a bite out of the cheap-PC market, though as many will likely point out in the comments here, they are very different devices. Nevertheless, the iPad has dented netbook sales, and as tablets mature, that trend will likely increase. Apple's portion of the US pie has increased quite significantly: a 23.7% jump brought them to a total of 9.7% of all computers sold in the country this last quarter. Why are more people buying macs? That's a more complicated question than it sounds.
Hopeful Plaintiff Sues Yahoo, Digg, Reddit, Fark, TechCrunch, And Others
Jan 13, 3:09AM
Oh no, we've been sued. This week's hopeful plaintiff is Gooseberry Natural Resources LLC, who filed a complaint in a Los Angeles federal court against Reddit, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Digg, Fark, Geeknet, TechCrunch, Newsvine, Yahoo and others. We, along with our fellow defendants, have allegedly been violating US Patent No. 6,370,535, titled System and method for structured news release generation and distribution. The invention underlying the patent appears to be the notion of typing text into an admin system, storing that text on a server, and then publishing it on the Internet. The patent was awarded in 2002. The good news is this. AOL has a whole legal department to deal with these...people. Someday I really hope to get every wingnut who's ever threatened us up on a stage and then let TechCrunch readers throw rotten tomatoes at them. That would be cathartic.
OnSwipe Raises, Like, A Million Dollars
Jan 13, 3:00AM
PadPressed, the WordPress plugin that makes your blog look like a native app is branching out, with a new one million seed round of funding, a new name (OnSwipe) and homebase (New York). The round, which was completed in a marathon 30 days, was led by Spark Capital, Betaworks and AdMob investor ENIAC Ventures. Angel investors like Hubspot CEO Dharmesh Shah, Jennifer Lum, Roy Rodenstein and Wayne Chang also participated.
Could Cloning Groupon Give eBay New Life in Emerging Markets?
Jan 13, 2:50AM
As we've reported over and over again, there is no shortage of Groupon clones in the world. Given reports of more than 500 such clones in China alone, I'd guess there are thousands of them world-wide. Most of these are small, very local one-off companies. But there's a new entrant to the global Groupon copy cat fray you may have heard of: eBay. It seems eBay is offering a group-buying service in India and in the Philippines.
Google Acquires eBook Technologies
Jan 13, 12:34AM
Google has just acquired eBook Technologies, according to a notice that is currently appearing on the company's homepage. Google confirmed the acquisition, with a spokesperson giving us this statement: "We are happy to welcome eBook Technologies' team to Google. Together, we hope to deliver richer reading experiences on tablets, electronic readers and other portable devices."So what exactly is eBook Technologies? Details on the homepage are scant — the site just has a banner that says, "eBook Technologies supplies a family of intelligent reading devices and licenses technologies that enable automated publishing and control over content distribution." Most links on the site, including the Product page, just redirect to this homepage. However, a little digging through Google's Cache reveals more details.
YouMail's Visual Voicemail App Surpasses 2 Million Downloads, Mostly BlackBerry Users
Jan 13, 12:09AM
Voicemail is dead. Visual Voicemail, however, is a different story. Those who have it love it — and those that don't have it, want it. Even if you loathe voicemail as much as we do, you're going to have to check yours sooner or later (or not) — and unless you like spending 10 minutes touchtoning your way through a system built a decade ago, doing it through Visual Voicemail is the only way to go. Unfortunately, Visual Voicemail still isn't a standard feature on every smartphone — but in most cases, a third party solution is available. Later today, one of these third party solutions, YouMail, will announce that they've cracked through their 2 millionth download. 
Chrome, Chrome OS Updated With First "Elite" Bug Squashed
Jan 12, 11:46PM
As part of their effort to speed up release cycles, Google no longer likes to acknowledge in a big way when they update Chrome. They're simply doing it too often for it to mean much. But today they've taken a bit of time to acknowledge an update to both Chrome and Chrome OS, in part because they were able to quash a big bug. Specifically, Chrome and Chrome OS were updated to versions 8.0.552.237 and 8.0.552.334, respectively. That itself isn't huge news as both were already on version 8 — but again, the versions simply don't mean much anymore. Instead, the bigger news is that Google gave out the first "Elite" Chromium security reward.
More Crunchies Tix, Get 'Em While They're Hot! Plus, a Special Musical Guest Announcement!
Jan 12, 11:21PM
Yes, that's right. Hide yo wife, hold your Tweets, stop your emails, and don't even think about opening a Skype chat, because we are proud to announce that the third batch of tickets for the 2010 Crunchies Awards are on sale now. Right now. But that's not all. Not only are we releasing more tickets, but we've also confirmed that a very special musical guest will be performing at the 2010 Crunchies. He wowed everyone at TED in 2009, and the subsequent video went viral. He blew us away at DisruptNY, and now, thanks to MailChimp, ELEW will be rocking the 2010 Crunchies Awards on January 21 in San Francisco. Boom.
Benchmark Capital Takes Stake In Brazil's Peixe Urbano
Jan 12, 11:08PM
What do you get when you mix Groupon's business model, a country with 200 million souls, and an ex-Facebook exec? A company that Benchmark Capital will invest in, that's what. Brazil's Peixe Urbano, a Groupon-type startup founded by the former Brazilian country manager for Facebook Julio Vasconcellos, launched in mid 2010 (we first wrote about them in March 2010). By August they had 1 million registered users. Today they have over 5 million. They also are announcing that they've raised a first round of funding, from Benchmark Capital and Brazil's Monashees Capital. Matt Cohler from Benchmark and Eric Acher from Monashees are taking board seats. They are not disclosing the size of the round.
T-Mobile Wastes No Time Taking A Shot At iPhone On Verizon (And AT&T)
Jan 12, 11:08PM
Well you have to give T-Mobile one thing: they sure are quick. It was only yesterday that Verizon announced that the iPhone 4 was coming to their network in a few weeks. That means that both AT&T and Verizon, the two largest carriers in the U.S., will now have the device. Meanwhile, the two smaller ones, Sprint and T-Mobile, will not (at least not yet). But T-Mobile believes they can offer customers something you can't get on the iPhone on Verizon or AT&T: 4G speed. Below, check out their new ad in true Apple-mocking style (similar to a previous one they did making fun of the iPhone for being on AT&T's network). They're calling this new ad "Identity". It features the same attractive woman (T-Mobile), hip guy (iPhone 4) and corporate man (AT&T) from the other ad. But this time there's a second corporate guy to represent Verizon (he has the red tie, AT&T has a blue tie, get it?). Cute.
What iOS 4.3, And Specifically The New Multi-Touch Gestures, May Say About iPad 2
Jan 12, 10:42PM
If there's one thing that came out of CES this year, it's that everyone, and I do mean everyone, wants a piece of the action that Apple absolutely dominates with the iPad right now. Tablets, tablets, tablet, tablets. We'll see dozens upon dozens of them released this year. So how will Apple meet the onslaught? With the iOS 4.3 beta that just got pushed to developers today, it looks like we may have a first glimpse of the answer. One that may also point to the big answer: iPad 2. As Macstories points out, a part of the iOS 4.3 beta looks to be new gesture support for the iPad. As they write:
YouTube Mobile Traffic Tripled In 2010, Android App Gets Music Videos (And Ads)
Jan 12, 10:00PM
Given how popular YouTube is on the web, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that a lot of people also enjoy watching video clips from their phones. And, given the surge in Android, iPhone, and iPad sales, that adds up to a lot of videos. Today, YouTube is announcing just how much people are watching: a whopping 200 million video views per day, up 3x from January 2010. In addition to this stat, YouTube is also expanding its mobile content library — but only for its Android application. Beginning today, you'll be able to watch official music videos through YouTube's partnership with VEVO. This includes content from three of the big labels: EMI, UMG, and Sony, but music videos from Warner (the lone holdout on VEVO) isn't available. In addition to the music videos you'll be able to swipe through artist bios, other tracks by the same artist, and related artists. YouTube has offered access to these music videos from its web portal since VEVO's inception, but they've been blocked on mobile devices for one big reason: content owners couldn't monetize them.
First Amazon Took Down Booksellers…Are Publishers Next?
Jan 12, 9:08PM
It's not that Amazon set out to destroy small book stores. They just offered a better option for a large number of people. Now, Amazon is increasingly offering small features here and there that taken together may start to make a traditional publisher a lot less necessary for authors. No one is more shocked by that sentence than I am. While I've jumped firmly from old-media to new-media when it comes to articles and videos, I've remained a big believer that self-publishing via eBook isn't yet a viable option for most authors, assuming you want a lot of people to read your book. It's just not personally satisfying either. A book is something I spend years of my life writing-- usually for a comparatively small amount of money -- and I want to hold it once all the pain is over. I want it to sit on my coffee table. I want it reviewed in the New York Times. And I want to walk in a book store and see it on the shelf. In most cases, only a traditional publisher can do that for me. 
So When Do The "Droid Did" Verizon iPhone Commercials Start?
Jan 12, 8:51PM
Maybe you heard, Verizon finally has the iPhone. Or it will, in a few weeks. And you know what that means: it's time to advertise the hell out of that bad boy. But don't be surprised if it's Verizon doing more of the pushing than Apple. Reports today have Verizon putting their significant "marketing muscle" behind the device in the coming weeks. This should be no surprise given what they've done for the iPad — a device which doesn't really even directly connect to their network (though that will change). It's also in line with what we've been hearing for month: that Verizon was getting ready for a huge push in Q1 around some new mobile product. The assumption has long been that this would be the iPhone.
The Most Amazing Press Release Ever Written
Jan 12, 7:50PM
I know we have been at odds in the past PR Industry, but today you have redeemed yourself, fully and entirely, for eternity. Mitch Delaplane, you are a god among PR professionals, you and your 483 words of pure awesomeness had me at "The title alone grabs you and demands that it be read. Then there's this quote that completely takes things to an entirely new level." Indeed. 
Mixpanel Gets A UI Makeover; Monthly Data Volume Growing By 40 Percent
Jan 12, 7:03PM
We've written about Mixpanel, an analytics-focused startup whose backers include Y Combinator, Michael Birch, and Max Levchin. The startup, which currently tracks over 1 billion actions per month, allows developers to track a variety of user actions, including the number of pages a user has viewed, iPhone app analytics, interactions on Facebook apps and email analytics. Today, the company is announcing a UI makeover, and revealing that data volume is growing by 40 percent each month. Mixpanel is tracking how many comments, subscribers, likes, shares, and page views users are getting. And Mixpanel places all of this data on an easy-to-read dashboard for users to check and monitor. Mixpanel has also added the ability for users to create custom email digests of data, that will send daily or hourly emails to users to track certain analytics.
CrunchGear Interviews Gary Shapiro, The President Of The CEA And The International CES
Jan 12, 6:47PM
While planning the International CES, mingling with Congress and performing other presidently duties at the CEA, Gary Shaprio managed to pen a book. The Comeback goes into how innovation was America's past and ultimately its future. Nicholas and I sat down with Mr. Shapiro for a few minutes to discuss his upcoming book, CES and how China invented gunpowder. We also obtained permission to publish the second chapter in the book where Mr. Shapiro recalls his adventures defending the VCR against a raging MPAA assault in the late '70s and early '80s. This is where the man saw how innovation is often stifled just so slow-moving industries do not suffer or fail. Click through for our CES 2011 interview and the entire second chapter for your reading enjoyment.
¡IncreÃble! Google Turns Your Android Phone Into An On-The-Fly Conversation Interpreter
Jan 12, 6:30PM
When it came to translations, you used to either need an interpreter or a book to navigate another language. That was either costly or cumbersome, respectively. Then the Internet came along and made things significantly easier. Except you had to be chained to your computer to translate something. A year ago, Google made things easier again by launching their Translate app for Android. But that's nothing compared to what they're releasing today. The latest version of Google Translate for Android comes with a few updates to celebrate the one-year anniversary. Most of these are to the user interface. But there's also one new feature they're previewing in alpha mode. And it's awesome: Conversation Mode.
Social Gaming To Be A $1B Market In 2011; Virtual Goods To Bring In $653M
Jan 12, 5:01PM
Social gaming is expected to be a billion-dollar business this year, according to an eMarketer report released today. Of course, this staggering number isn't surprising considering the massive growth of both Zynga and Facebook as a platform for social games. eMarketer says that nearly 62 million US internet users, or 27% of the online audience, will play at least one game on a social network monthly this year, up from 53 million in 2010. In the U.S., consumers will spend $653 million on virtual goods in social games in 2011, compared to $510 million spent in 2010. 
Google Serves Places On The iPhone With A Side Of Hotpot
Jan 12, 4:38PM
Google Places is now on your iPhone. If you download the app (iTunes link) you get a mobile version of Google Places, Google's local directory. It shows you nearby restaurants, coffee shops, bars, ATMs, gas stations, hotels, and other attractions. You can also search for any category you like, just like on Google Places proper or on Google Maps for Android. Perhaps the most important feature for Google is getting people to write more native reviews using the app. The app shows excerpts of reviews from around the web like on Yelp or Insiderpages, and below that are the native Google reviews. Currently, Google Places does not have a lot of great quality reviews written by Google users themselves. Therefore, Google built the product on the backs of reviews from other sites on the Web. But Google wants to build up its own corpus of reviews, and with apps like this it is going straight to consumers to get them to rate and review places around where they live, work, and travel. 
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