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San Francisco Wants to Tax Your Stock Options– All of Them.
Feb 18, 8:07AM
Few people are aware the San Francisco has had a tax provision in its municipal code since 2004 that requires companies to pay a payroll tax on gains from employee stock options. No one pays it, and San Francisco hasn't enforced it to date, but companies are becoming increasingly agitated that the city may change that policy at any time. The number of high profile and high value startups based in San Francisco - like Twitter and Zynga - may be too big of a temptation for the city to ignore. Recently, I heard San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee on our local NPR station talking about how important it was to keep Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco. To those worried that the recent talks between Twitter and the City were stalling, his words must have been reassuring. Unfortunately, there's that much bigger tax time-bomb ticking away at City Hall that Lee needs to defuse now. It's not just about keeping Twitter in San Francisco-- this could have ramifications for San Francisco's entire startup ecosystem.
Google Courts Yahoo Users With New Delicious Bookmarks Importer Tool
Feb 18, 6:15AM
The Delicious saga continues ... In reaction to what many have thought to be Yahoo's mismanagement of the popular bookmarking service Delicious in the past couple of months, many people have tried to roll their own Delicious importers in hopes of taking advantage of the traffic exodus. Google too has today rolled out a Delicious migration tool for Google Bookmarks, to give people who were scared of the demise of Delicious a safe haven for their meticulously curated links. 
A Bird's-Eye View Of iOS And Android As Seen By One Premium Ad Platform
Feb 18, 6:00AM
Comparing the iOS and Android platforms is often tricky because the perspective is usually one-sided. But mobile ad platforms tend to have a pretty well-rounded look at the state of things because they're agnostic in the religious war that is iOS versus Android. And of those, Medialets has one of the best views since their data comes from only big-time app makers which tend to be on both platforms. Apps like Pandora, New York Times, Fandango, CNN, The Weather Channel, and a wide range of others. In other words, the "premium apps". So what are they seeing? First and foremost, to state the obvious, mobile is exploding across the board. Medialets says their premium inventory rose almost 300 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. Pretty much every report you will have read in the past few years will say the same thing.
Gawker's Gulp Moment: Big Redesign Is Driving People Away
Feb 18, 4:03AM
About ten days ago, gossip blog Gawker and its sister sites Gizmodo, Lifehacker and others switched over to a drastic redesign which was met with plenty of jeers. People always complain about design changes, but this time it looks like several of Gawker's sites actually took a major hit to traffic. According to Quantcast, which directly measures the sites, Gawker's U.S. daily unique visitors were cut in half from a high of 561,000 to 257,000 (see chart above). Gizmodo dropped from 746,000 to 420,000 in the U.S. Sitemeter shows an even more harrowing freefall for Gizmodo (see chart at right). Jezebel and Deadspin also took hits. Only Lifehacker seems to be holding steady. 
Look Out Quora, InboxQ Takes Q&A Off-Site And On To Twitter
Feb 18, 3:26AM
As becomes more difficult to find the answers you want on Google, using hashtags like #lazyweb to ask questions on Twitter has become some people's recourse, to much success -- Just try it. Realizing this, Y Combinator company Answerly is announcing a product revamp today, going from a run of the mill Q&A site to something much more interesting. Their new product,IinboxQ is a free browser plugin (right now only available on Chrome) that performs searches for questions on Twitter by keyword and other factors. The fact that InboxQ, like Replyz, has realized that Twitter has become the platform for a lot of Q&A activity is pretty genius. And its plan is to leverage this for businesses and brands looking to connect with customers, a hyper targeted form of lead gen.
'Year Of The Rabbit' Begins As Chrome 10 Hops Into Beta With 'Crankshaft' JavaScript
Feb 18, 1:41AM
As they have made abundantly clear over the past several months, Google hates talking about the version numbers of Chrome. Well, except when they have something to talk about. Which is actually quite often. Today brings another post highlighting some new features in Chrome 10, which has just hit the beta channel of the browser. "In the spirit of the lunar new year, we're excited to kick off the Year of the Rabbit with a slew of enhancements in the Chrome beta channel," Google writes. You can find a whole list of new features and improvements for Chrome 10 beta here, including password sync, GPU-accelerated video, and the new settings tab. But the key to Chrome 10, once again, is speed.
Google Opens Developer Preview Of Chrome Web Store In 15 More Countries
Feb 18, 1:06AM
After months of anticipation, Google finally unveiled the Chrome Web Store this past December. But a lot of users were disappointed with the launch for one very big reason: it was U.S.-only. Starting today, Google is finally taking the initial steps to change that, as they've opened a developer preview of the Web Store for 15 more countries. Note that this doesn't mean the store is ready quite yet for international users. Google says that a full launch will happen "later this year". "We are releasing this developer preview ahead of the consumer release so you have enough time to prepare your apps for international users," Google notes. This is the same thing Google did for U.S. developers back in August of last year. If that timetable holds, international users should get access in about four months.
Anoma.ly Gets 500K From A Bunch Of Rockstar Investors, Rebrands As Dapt
Feb 18, 12:22AM
Anoma.ly, a startup that is working on optimizing the personalization of realtime information streams, is announcing its first funding round today with 500K in seed money from rockstar investors like Yelp's Russel Simmons, PayPal's Max Levchin, YouTube's Steve Chen, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, Klout's Thomas McInerney, James Hong, ex-Googler Harry Cheung and Microsoft Kinnect creative director Steph Tryphonas. i/o Ventures partner Jim Young called it "The most stacked angel round he's seen." The startup will be using the funding to launch a major update to its Cadmus firehose product, rebranding it as Dapt. In the same vien as My6Sense and Storify, Dapt will be focused on aggregating conversations on Twitter and from other places around the web.
GoodGuide Ranks Mobile Phone Sustainability: RIM Worst, Nokia Best
Feb 17, 11:29PM
Today, GoodGuide (a TechCrunch50 alumni company) added mobile phone rankings to their comprehensive database that ranks the environmental and social performance of products, and the companies that make them. In its new mobile phone category, the San Francisco startup ranked 576 different handsets and chargers from 16 top mobile phone makers in the U.S. market. GoodGuide assessed everything from the "ingredients" that go into the phones, to each device's energy efficiency, recyclable qualities, and manufacturers' willingness to disclose details about its supply chain, materials and more. For environmental performance and impact of the companies overall: RIM came in dead last, Nokia topped the GoodGuide environmental chart, and Apple stood at third place. 
Is Bleacher Report the New New Media Hope? (TCTV)
Feb 17, 11:15PM
TechCrunch is off the market. Huffington Post won't be the first $1 billion independent new media company. So who else is left to give us hope that blogging can be the savior of declining old media? It might be Bleacher Report. The sports site is coming off a huge 2010 and a banner January: Unique users grew to nearly 20 million per month, and it's now the fourth largest sports destination according to comScore, not including roll-up fan sites. In December, the company raised a $10.5 million round of funding, and named a new CEO, Brian Grey, former general manager of Yahoo Sports and former general manager of Fox Sports Interactive-- two of the only sports properties that still dwarf Bleacher Report. Because this is such a sleeper success story we invited Grey into the studio to talk about how the business has continued to grow while so many blogs have stagnated, why sports has been such a neglected vertical and as a Raiders fan what he thinks of Donald Rumsfeld's bizarre declaration that the team was "evil." 
Nordstrom Acquires Flash Sales Site HauteLook For $270 Million
Feb 17, 9:32PM
In one of the larger exits so far in the flash sales business, retail chain Nordstrom has acquired flash sales site HauteLookfor $180 million in Nordstrom stock and three-year earn-out of up to $90 million. HauteLook has raised $41 million in funding. Thanks to the immense popularity of members-only, online sample sales, HauteLook has grown to 4 million members since launching in 2007. The site offers massively discounted sale events in women's fashion, men's fashion, accessories, kids' clothing and toys, travel and home and beauty. 
Game Closure Makes it a Breeze to Build Multiplayer, Cross-Platform Games
Feb 17, 9:07PM
It's probably fair to say that most people love the interactive experience of playing realtime multiplayer games, yet perhaps surprisingly, the majority of games on the App Store today are single player. Even the popular social games on Facebook don't offer the rich experience of the classic multiplayer console games like Halo. This seems largely due to the fact that the coding, synchronizations, and de-buggings required to write multiplayer games can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. The same is only more true for multi-platform, multiplayer games. Enter Game Closure. Launching today at SSE Labs' Demo Day at AOL, Game Closure is a smart new game development environment and SDK that makes it easy to create, host, and deploy HTML5-based cross-platform, multiplayer games, starting with iOS, Android, and Facebook.
IMDb Takes Android App Global With International Movie Showtimes And More
Feb 17, 8:00PM
Amazon's IMDb recently updated its iPad and iPhone apps with international showtimes, entertainment news and more. Today, IMDb is bringing these updates to its recently launched Android app. The app, which is free, now includes a completely redesigned homescreen that integrates the latest trailers of movies, and features updated entertainment news from hundreds of media outlets. You'll also be able to install an IMDb news widget on Android devices.
Moshi Monsters Aims To Become The Facebook for Kids (TCTV)
Feb 17, 7:51PM
Mind Candy CEO Michael Acton Smith came to my office today to tell me about Moshi Monsters, his company's virtual world for kids that is signing up a new member every second. Moshi Monsters was his "last roll of the dice" to save his virtual worlds startup in 2008, and it worked. Moshi Monsters is up to 35 million registered users, with about 7 million of those active every month, says Smith. And it is projected to generate $100 million this year from a combination of subscriptions and gross retail merchandise sales. The site is geared towards kids between 5 to 12 years old. Each kid gets a monster pet and a room that can be decked out with virtual goods. But instead of trying to create "just another bloody virtual world," Smith wanted it to be more like a safe social network. "Instead of copying Club Penguin," he says, "we focused more on Facebook and tried to re-imagine that for kids." There is pin board where friends can leave messages and a news feed, but there are also games, quizes and virtual world activities. The penny-drop moment for us was that kids like to share and show off online just as much as adults do," he says. "If we could create the safe place online, we could create Facebook for kids." In the video above, Smith explains his strategy and gives me a brief tour of the site. 
Attachments.me Puts A Visual, Social Spin On Email Attachment Search
Feb 17, 7:49PM
Searching Gmail for attachments is basically awful. Because everything in Gmail is so text-based, searches yield results that are also text-based. But what if there was a Google Image-like search option for attachments? And what if it was one that had a social element to better filter results? That's essentially what Attachments.me is building. Currently, the service works with your Gmail credentials. You login and it begins indexing all of your email, looking for all of the attachments you've ever received. Once it does that, it breaks them up by file type: music, code, archive, movie, image, and document. And the main navigation page is populated with thumbnails of each of these attachments sorted by either the date they came in or alphabetically. But the real key to the service is search. 
Autodesk Buys Simulation Software Company Blue Ridge Numerics For $39M In Cash
Feb 17, 7:08PM
Design, engineering and entertainment software juggernaut Autodesk has acquired Blue Ridge Numerics, a company that develops simulation software, for approximately $39 million in cash. Blue Ridge Numerics simulation software allows engineers to design and manufacture products that are prepared for real-world conditions. Engineers can virtually test and predict real-world behavior of new and existing designs and eliminate expensive physical prototyping cycles in the lab. Blue Ridge customers include Parker Hannifin, Philips Medical, Top-Flite and Wolf Appliance.
Why Can't Tablet Makers Just Freaking Ship?
Feb 17, 6:55PM
CE manufacturers are scared. They're scared of competition, they're scared of unique designs, and they're scared, most of all, to ship. Take the RIM Playbook, for example. As Jim Dalrymple points out, RIM first announced the Playbook in September 2010. Then it announced a 4G version in January and then 4G LTE, HSPA+ and Mobile WiMAX models this month. RIM, in short, released three products that don't exist. Jim calls the Playbook vaporware but, given what we've seen, it's a real product that just hasn't rolled through RIMs front doors yet. So it's been six months since RIM announced their device and two months since Motorola announced the Xoom. HP still hasn't shipped the TouchPad, either. Every tablet you saw at MWC this year is shipping "later this year." The only thing that you can be sure will ship on time is the iPad 2 and that doesn't even exist yet.
Through Tags and Boost, Google Hopes to Provide Local Advertisers With DIY Services
Feb 17, 6:45PM
Last April, Google converted its Small Business Center into Google Places, where businesses can go to claim a listing on Google and Google Maps, a re-branding effort that has become part of Google's push into local searches and local advertising. Included in those features was Google Tags, a service that allows local businesses to enhance their Google Maps listings by providing a link to special offers, coupons, or back to their website -- indicated by a small, yellow tag. Tags are offered for a flat fee at $25 a month. Last week, Google further ramped up its foray into local, officially rolling out Boost, their advertising solution to help local business owners to easily create online search ads from directly within their Google Places account. This "set it and forget it" service targets local businesses that have stopped using AdWords due to its relative complexity and the time required to manage ad campaigns, essentially re-creating a subscription-based model. A business just has to add Boost to their listing in Google Places, set up a monthly budget, and select relevant categories. Boost does the rest, advertising on Google and Google Maps. (You may have seen the blue pin at the top of a Google Map search? That's a Boost ad.)
Media Monitors Acquires Social Media Tracking Company Brandtology
Feb 17, 6:34PM
Australian media researcher Media Monitors has bought a majority stake in Singapore-based social media tracking firm Brandtology. It marks the Asian-Pacific media intelligence company's first acquisition since it was itself acquired by private equity firm Quadrant last summer. Terms of the Brandtology deal were not disclosed. Brandtology raised a $1.35 million round in April 2009.
Bing Friends Facebook With New Version Of Toolbar
Feb 17, 6:33PM
Bing is rolling out a new version of its toolbar today, that features deeper integrations with search, Facebook, email clients and more. You access your Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail accounts and you can bring in your Facebook network and push status updates from the actual bar. Unfortunately, it's only available for Windows and IE right now. Microsoft says the approach for the new version was "make the stuff you do every day online easier," hence the integration with Facebook, search and email. One notable difference in the new version is that the search box is smack in the center of the toolbar. Search history, suggestions and deep links are all marked distinctly in the box (by color) to help users search faster. 
CafePress Wants To Give You A CrunchGear iPhone 4 Case
Feb 17, 5:46PM
Happy Thursday! CafePress, makers of customized T-shirts and books and mugs and stuff, wants to give you, the fine people of CG, 100 CrunchGear iPhone 4 cases. Why? Because you guys are b to the a to the d to the a to the double snakes, that's why. This is a random for one of 100 CrunchGear iPhone cases and entering is pretty darn simple.
Twitter Wants To Know Why You Aren't Using #NewTwitter
Feb 17, 5:03PM
For any of you who still use the old version of Twitter, you may have noticed that the company has started to actively encourage users to switch the new version, which was unveiled last Fall. At the top of the Twitter.com page, users see a warning "You're using an old version of Twitter. It won't be around long," with a button "Switch To New Twitter." And Twitter is also asking those users who don't want to switch to take a survey of why they won't switch. Using SurveyMonkey, Twitter first asks users why they haven't switched. Then Twitter presents users with a list of the most common issues users have complained about with respect to the new version and asks users to rank how much they agree or disagree with each of the statements. These include, "I have to click an extra time to see my lists," "Sometimes I just see a white screen when I log in," "I don't like change. Old Twitter is fine," "There's too much stuff. It feels cluttered.," "It hides my background," "I don't like the 2 column layout," and "I can't find my Direct Messages."
Where Does Watson Go From Here? First Stop: Healthcare
Feb 17, 4:05PM
We all saw what Watson did last night, but now the question becomes: what now? So what that IBM created an artificial intelligence that was able to answer a few trivia questions? (That's a massively simplistic way of looking at Watson, and discounts the incredible capabilities of the human brain and discounts the complexity of having to interpret human language with off-the-shelf hardware and finely tuned software.) Is there an end-game here? Maybe "end-game" is too strong phrase to use, but IBM has announced a deal with Nuance Communications to "explore, develop, and commercialize the Watson computing system's advanced analytics capabilities in the healthcare industry." 
After Tahrir: Egypt 2.0
Feb 17, 3:42PM
We were in Cairo the week before Tunisia fell, meeting with dozens of Egyptian technology start-ups on behalf of the US State Dept's Global Entrepreneurship Program. The quality of their ideas thrilled us, as did their skill sets, vision and quiet resolve. It did not surprise us to hear that many of those we met shut their laptops in recent weeks to march through the streets throughout Egypt. Through email, cell, texts and social networks, we have remained close with them throughout this remarkable upheaval. Even before Tahrir Square became forever etched in the global consciousness, a new generation of entrepreneurs had been emerging as a third voice in Arab politics and society. Rather than just engaging in political debates or religious interpretations, they have had their heads down focused on building new products, and by extension new industries. While their frames of reference include successes from Silicon Valley to India, they are a movement distinctively and culturally attuned to their country and region. These young men and women are the progenitors of what we are calling Egypt 2.0.
Google Search Finally Going Fully Social With Shared Twitter Links And Even Quora Data
Feb 17, 3:00PM
At least a couple times a week we get tipped about Google testing a new "social search" feature. The truth is that the "social circle" results that everyone is pointing to have been in place since 2009. But Google clearly didn't think too much of them and shoved them all the way down at the bottom of the results page. I'm not sure I've ever clicked on a link served up there. But this social aspect is about to get a lot more interesting starting today. What Google is sort of downplaying as just an "update" to social search, is actually much more. Google is taking those social circle links at the bottom of the page, pumping them with social steroids, and shoving them towards the top of results pages. For the first time, social is actually going to affect Google Search in a meaningful way.
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