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Jan 18, 9:16AM
Just before the weekend, Facebook
announced that it had expanded the information users are able to share with external websites and applications, to include home addresses and mobile phone numbers. This enables developers of e.g. an ecommerce site to more easily fetch the address and phone number of a potential customer to streamline the checkout process, should the Facebook user in question be willing to share that information. This morning, Facebook
announced that it has temporarily disabled the sharing feature, looking to relaunch it in the next few weeks after making some changes. Facebook dubs these changes 'improvements' repeatedly, but of course the company is responding to the wave of criticism it has received for releasing the new sharing feature.
Jan 18, 7:11AM
Mobile broadband network developer
Stoke has snagged $17 million in Series E funding led by new investor
Focus Ventures and previous investors
Sequoia Capital,
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,
Integral Capital Partners,
DAG Ventures,
Net One Systems Co.,
Pilot House Ventures,
DoCoMo Capital Ltd and
Mobile Internet Capital, Inc. Stoke
last raised a $15 million Series Dround back in April 2009 and its total funding to date is a hefty $92 million.
Jan 18, 6:04AM
This is how to milk a stealth startup for all it's worth. We first covered Seattle startup
Wavii back in July. The company has raised somewhere around $2 million in angel funding from thirty or so angel investors - only a
few of which are publicly known. It continues to get a lot of behind the scenes buzz as the stealth startup to watch. And watch, and watch. They've been in private beta for some time. But there are only 100 or so hand picked people using the product, and apparently none of them are social tech types who will talk about the product. They've kept everyone waiting. Expectations are sky high.
Jan 18, 6:00AM
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Perfect Market Inc. has raised another $9 million — bringing its total funding to $28 million — for technology and services to help publishers generate web traffic, and make more money off their content.
Comcast Interactive Capital led the round, joined by the company's existing investors:
Idealab,
Rustic Canyon Partners,
Tribune Company and
Trinity Ventures. Chief executive and president of Perfect Market,
Julie Schoenfeld, explained on Monday:
"There's a way you look at content, and a way you look at context. Our system goes through millions and millions of articles — we're over 17 million now — to come up with a list of possible searches that will get someone to the right story, and will make sure they don't get an ad that's just wrong in the context of that page... 
Jan 18, 5:09AM
TechCrunch reader Lane Woolf has brought to our attention a possibly offensive Languages option on Facebook Profiles (Edit profile > Languages > Type in the first three letters). While the first reports on Twitter about being able to set your profile language to "Nigga Slang" come from two days ago, complaints have come to a head today, on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. 
Jan 18, 5:06AM
Facebook may be responsible for nearly a quarter of all display ads shown in the U.S., but it only collects about 5 percent of U.S. online ad revenues. An article in AdAge reports on new estimates from eMarketer which peg Facebook's 2010 advertising revenues at $1.86 billion, with $1.21 billion of that coming from the U.S. That would give Facebook a 4.7 percent share of the estimated $25.8 billion total spent in the U.S. on online advertising last year. Despite its already impressive financial might, Facebook could be doing a lot better. The gap between its share of display ad impressions and ad dollars shows how poorly Facebook is monetizing those ads, and suggests there is still a lot of room for improvement. Indeed, by 2012, eMarketer estimates Facebook's U.S. ad revenues will more than double to $2.89 billion and it will account for nearly 9 percent of the U.S. online advertising pie.
Jan 18, 4:58AM
Cheezburger, the internet publisher responsible for LOLcats, FAIL Blog, and other memes, has raised a whopping $30 million in new funding led by the Foundry Group with Madrona Venture Group, Avalon Ventures, and SoftBank Capital participating in the round. Brad Feld of Foundry Group, Greg Gottesman of Madrona Venture Group, and Rich Levandov of Avalon Ventures will be joining Cheezburger's board of directors. This latest investment brings the startup's total funding to $32.5 million Founded in 2007 by former journalist Ben Huh, Cheezburger has grown from a small site to a network of fifty sites that have brought internet memes and tech culture mainstream. Cheezburger's network of sites has a total user base of 16.5 million people who upload more than 500,000 pictures and videos as well as view 375 million pages and 110 million videos each month. 
Jan 18, 3:00AM
As a member of the media, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Nexus S running Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" a few weeks ago. It's great, easily the best version of Android yet. I hope one day soon you all get to try it out. But the likelihood of that is pathetically small. In fact, don't be surprised if Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" is out before most of you even get a chance to use Gingerbread — maybe even for phones as well as tablets. With the iPhone, it's a much different story. The likelihood that you are already running the latest version of the iOS software is much, much higher. In fact, it's something around 90 percent, if some numbers shared by the CEO of Bump are to be believed.
Jan 18, 1:50AM
By now you might be familiar with the startup with the funny name, as its very existence made news outlets as diverse as the Washington Post, Portfolio.com and Hipster Runoff. And while Hipster CEO Doug Ludlow still refuses on the record to say what the site is about, at this point we've heard the words Yelp, Quora and location-based Q&A site being tossed around by sundry reporters, savvy Googlers and one ambitious tipster who sent us an in-depth analysis of its Javascript. 
Jan 18, 12:11AM
That was fast. A few weeks ago you may have come across a site called Threewords.me with a very simple premise: invite your friends and online followers to describe you with three words. It's about as simple as they come, but the site managed to get quite a bit of early traction by feeding off retweets and Facebook shares (which were in turn driven by our collective narcissism). You can see our initial coverage on the site right here. Now the site's 18 year old creator, Mark Bao, is looking to sell the project. His reason? According to a comment he left on Hacker News, Threewords was just a side project and he intends to dedicate more time to his startup Supportbreeze, among other things. The site is sporting some solid stats, including 253,000 users, 1.42 million total entries, 4.9 million unique visitors and 17.2 million page views — not bad given that it's been around for less than a month. But caveat emptor to anyone thinking this site is guaranteed to stay popular for the long haul — it could well have been a flash in the pan (after all, Bao would have probably kept working on it if it was in fact the Next Big Thing).
Jan 18, 12:00AM
Flash sales site One Kings Lane has made its first acquisition today, purchasing publishing design firm Helicopter. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. We're big fans of One Kings Lane, the Kleiner Perkins backed startup cofounded by Ali Pincus and Susan Feldman. The site offers deep, limited discounts on home décor, furnishings, accessories, and gifts.
Jan 17, 11:35PM
In Finland it is a law that every structure larger than 600 square meters must have a bomb shelter. Below Helsinki a vast network of nuclear fall-out shelters underpin the whole city. Even parking a car in an underground car-park in the Finnish capital means driving into a fall-out shelter, but things have changed considerably since the country's neighbour, the Soviet Union, fragmented into a country that will host the 2018 Soccer World Cup and is somewhat less likely to fire off nuclear weapons… although one never knows. Although the average December temperature in Helsinki is below freezing point, Finland is hot right now. The country is officially the least corrupt in the world, the number one in the Global Wealth and Happiness index, top in utility patents in the European Union and last year the Harvard Business Review rated it as the 2nd Innovation Hot Spot in the World.
Jan 17, 10:56PM
The next version of the iPad is, if timing and supply line rumors are to be believed, just around the corner. Although unexpected delays may follow in the wake of Jobs' medical leave, the design must be finalized, and the factories in China are at this moment preparing to pump out five or six million of these things over the next few months. There have been a few purported leaks, but Apple security has been competent this time around and the actual feature set of the new iPad is still somewhat of a mystery. That said, there are a number of rumors that have gained traction (or failed to), and here we attempt to bring them all together for your convenience, along with arguments for and against.
Jan 17, 9:15PM
Steve Jobs, as you've probably heard by now, is taking another medical leave of absence. The last time he took one in January, 2009 it was for six months and it turned out to be for a liver transplant, likely related to his earlier bout with pancreatic cancer. This time the leave is indefinite and Apple is not going into any further details about his condition. One thing Wall Street hates is uncertainty. Just look at what happened to Apple's stock between June, 2008 (when a very thin Steve Jobs appeared at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference, sparking speculation about his health), through his subsequent leave of absence, to June, 2009 (when the Wall Street Journal reported that he had undergone a liver transplant). During that period of uncertainty, the stock was down 23 percent, after dipping even lower (see chart). Will Apple's stock take another hit this time around?
Jan 17, 9:09PM
The Notion Ink Adam might be the best tablet you've never heard of -- but there's a good reason for that. This kit isn't coming from a high-profile outlet with deep distribution channels. It's coming from a start-up fueled by nothing but raw passion. For us at CrunchGear, the Adam isn't the fascinating part of the story; it's a wide-eyed company and its crazy fanboys. The tablet itself though has a rich, but short history. A little Bangalore-based company took the Adam went from rendering to production in just over one year and thanks to the company's vocal CEO, constantly granted fans a look at the development process. It's quite a story.
Jan 17, 8:50PM
It seems we aren't the only ones to think it's wise to hold off buying the Verizon iPhone. Consumer Reports recently made a recommendation against buying the highly anticipated device. Apple can't seem to get any slack from the CR guys; when iPhone 4 first came out, CR finally made the recommendation against buying it, though after a few tries. It comes as no surprise that Consumer Reports recommends against buying the Verizon iPhone, but maybe for different reasons than you think. But first, lets talk about why you would buy the Verizon iPhone.
Jan 17, 8:22PM
Both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are reporting this morning that Goldman Sachs has decided to limit its much ballyhooed private offering of up to $1.5 billion in Facebook shares to international investors only. The reason? SEC scrutiny, sparked by this January 2nd article in The New York Times announcing Goldman's $450 million investment and creation of a "special purpose investment" vehicle for Facebook. Arguably, as the Times article created a demand to get in on the private placement, it could effectively be viewed as solicitation by the SEC.
Jan 17, 8:18PM
As you've undoubtedly heard by now, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking an indefinite medical leave of absence from the company, while remaining on as CEO. As I'm the guy around these parts who is known for writing about Apple, I figured I'd weigh in on some of the high level ramifications of this. I don't plan to write about Jobs' health often, as quite frankly, the idea of going on and on with endless speculation about someone who is clearly quite sick doesn't appeal to me at all. The same would be true if it were the head of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. But that's not to say there's no story here. Of course there is. Jobs is the head of the most valuable technology company in the world. They're a public company with many shareholders who have the right to know certain information about the future of that company. And there is no denying that Jobs, perhaps more so than the head of any other company, is extremely important to that future. So what does his absence mean?
Jan 17, 6:06PM
Populis (formerly GoAdv), which we've previously described as the "European Associated Content", has just announced that it's acquiring Blogo, a blog network that operates in Europe and South America owned by Dada, the Italian web publisher part owned by RCS MediaGroup. The acquisition price is pegged at €6 million. The "thematic blog network" consists of over 250 bloggers who cover 70 niches spanning subjects such as automotive, sport, finance and the arts. It targets the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Brazil, boasting around 100 million page views a month, says Populis, citing Nielsen stats as of November 2010.
Jan 17, 4:00PM
This is a guest post by Mark Suster, a 2x entrepreneur turned VC. He sold his second company to Salesforce.com, becoming VP of Product Management. He joined GRP Partners in 2007 as a General Partner focusing on early-stage technology companies. Read more about Suster on his blog at Bothsidesofthetable and on Twitter at @msuster.
Jan 17, 2:59PM
Sobees has made a business of creating innovative social media clients, particularly focusing on bringing Twitter, Facebook and social search to the a variety of platforms. Today, the developer is getting into the news business with the launch of NewsMix, an iPad app which presents news and content shared by your social circle in a magazine format on the device. The app, which costs $2.99 in the App Store, allows you to create and mix a digital magazine composed of content shared in your Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds (Google Reader and feed search). The app will categorize content in a magazine or show news in a separate timeline format for Facebook and Twitter. And you can view photos and videos in separate sections.
Jan 17, 2:45PM
Apple can do a lot of things, but it can't push through a new video standard. All of this iPad 2 speculation - that the new iPad will have a Retina display to show 2048x1536 content, a considerable step up from the 1024x768 of the previous iPad - is pretty much a pipe dream. Perhaps you'll have a slightly higher resolution display this year, but forget about a Retina display. Why? Because there's no content that will look good on it. Jack Deneut writes: Forget about DVD (Standard Definition) video, which if displayed at native resolution would be little bigger than a postage stamp on this new display. 720p HD video (the highest resolution sold on iTunes) would fill only a quarter of the screen, and 1080p video would have black bars not only along the top and bottom, but also along the sides of the screen. Of course, Apple will scale up these videos to fill the screen, but most people don't expect pixel-doubling when watching HD video.
Jan 17, 2:14PM
One of the biggest misconceptions about the European tech scene is that it should operate exactly like the Silicon Valley tech scene. This is just plain dunderheaded. The truth - far too too seldom stated - is that as well as operating in a 'Valley' manner, equally European startups can come out of a sector-specific business context. Thus, music startups like Last.FM, Songkick and others have continued to emerge from London and Berlin where the music and creative scene in Europe is hugely strong. London is also becoming a center for fashion startups like Editd and Garmz. In that same vein, London is a big financial centre. To that end today OpenGamma is a new kind of financial startup, based in London, which has an open source analytics and risk management platform for the financial services industry. Today it's completed a $6 million Series B round of equity financing led by FirstMark Capital, a New York-based VC. Accel Partners joins the round as a return investor. OpenGamma previously had a Series A round of $6m from Accel Partners. 
Jan 17, 1:52PM
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has just announced that he is taking a medical leave of absence according to a release issued by the company today. Here's the email memo Jobs sent to Apple employees today. Team, At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company. I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple's day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011. I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy. Steve
Jan 17, 1:49PM
There's certainly no shortage of services offering to help people connect online for professional reasons, and as of recently we can add eBackers to that particular line-up. Dubbed a request board for savvy web workers, aims to become a place where web professionals, online businesses, startups and people with ideas gather on the Web, whether for securing funding, partnerships or merely advice.
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