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Conan Roasts iPad 2: You'll Buy It No Matter What We Say [Video]
Mar 04, 7:46AM
With every new Apple product launch, there's now an expectation that we're going to get a video made by Apple to help explain the product. You know the ones. They feature Apple executives (though, oddly, never CEO Steve Jobs) set against a white background telling us how great and revolutionary the product is. They're brilliant and effective. But they definitely also take themselves way too seriously. And that's why they're the perfect target for parody. We've seen dozens of people/groups mock these on the web. And now the professionals are getting involved. During his TBS show tonight, Conan O'Brien decided to take his shot. Like Jobs, O'Brien isn't in the actual video. Instead he sets it up and lets his minions do the work. "I personally think that the people at Apple are starting to get a little bit cocky," O'Brien says to set it up. Enjoy below. I personally enjoy the Vice President of "Dream-Telligence".
Noteleaf Takes Mobile Meeting Notifications To A Whole New Level
Mar 04, 3:32AM
Backed by Y Combinator and SV Angel (outside of Start Fund), Noteleaf helps you prepare for meetings, in one of the more novel ways I have seen. Launching today, the service pulls information from your Google Calendar and LinkedIn accounts inorder to send you comprehensive notifications of what you need to do, where you need to do it and who you need to do it with.
Vurve Raises Another $4.5 Million To Give Businesses "Advertising On Autopilot"
Mar 04, 1:57AM
It's no secret that a well-managed online marketing campaign can be a powerful weapon for small businesses eager to get in front of new customers — there's a reason Google's AdWords pulls in billions each year. But while many online platforms offer self-service tools that businesses can use to manage their own campaigns, the legwork involved with running these (especially on multiple platforms simultaneously) can be daunting. That's where Vurve comes in. The startup, which just raised $4.5 million in a Series A funding round, promises businesses "Advertising on autopilot" — it automates many of the most time-intensive aspects of running marketing online. The funding round was led by Spark Capital, with participation from Dave McClure's 500 Startups and True Ventures. Vurve's signup workflow is pretty simple, relatively speaking (the startup says that it generally takes less than five minutes to complete). To help streamline things the company has been working on partnering with ecommerce platforms like Shopify — which has integrated Vurve directly into its administrator dashboard — and Yahoo's storefronts.
Ford Focus Is #WINNING
Mar 04, 1:34AM
You know who else is #WINNING in this whole Charlie Sheen on Twitter thing? The Twitter ad sales team. At upwards of $100K a pop, the revenue that Promoted Tweets bring in is no a joke. And it looks like big name brands like Ford Focus, Arbys and Audi and AMC Theatres have all forked over some cash to capitalise on the attention being lobbed onto to Sheen at the moment, buying into what is likely a Promoted Tweet keyword auction on the hashtag of his infamous catchphrase, "Winning." 
TextPlus Plays A Different Card In Group Messaging SXSW Battle: Your Heart Strings
Mar 04, 1:15AM
We're a week away from the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas and it's becoming very clear what the big battleground will be this year: group messaging apps. Just like micro-messaging apps a few years ago, and location apps last year, a bunch of players are poised to battle for the conference crown. But the fight will be even crazier this year as apps from players big (Ask Around) and small (Ditto) will be in the mix. And one of the larger players is taking a unique approach to the war. TextPlus honestly doesn't need SXSW. With 7.7 million monthly active users, the very well-funded app by GOGII is already massive. For comparison's sake, until their public launch today, Yobongo had 140 users. And the previous huge winner at SXSW, Foursquare, just hit 7 million users. TextPlus is going into this battle with quite a head start.
DEMO Wrap Up: 7 New Social Startups to Watch
Mar 04, 12:40AM
The DEMO Spring 2011 conference wrapped up yesterday in Palm Springs, and echoing the current climate in the Valley, day two of the conference belonged to startups focused on social technologies. From social CRM platforms, photo sharing, and social networks to aggregation and reader engagement tools to video and group chat, the day's startups showed that the interest in the "social" Web only continues to blossom. Here, in no particular order, is a look at seven new interesting startups worth keeping an eye on. 
ContextLogic Gets $1.7M From Conway, Rabois And Others To Better Target Ads, Content
Mar 03, 11:56PM
ContextLogic, an information relevancy startup that is focusing on optimizing the online ads space at the moment, has raised $1.7 million in angel funding from (for effect) SV Angel's Ron Conway, former Global President of Sales at Google Aydin Senkut, Keith Rabois, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, Microsoft VP Hank Vigil, former Microsoftie Fritz Lanman, Twitter Director of Search Elad Gil, Nils Johnson, Digital Garage, Michael Stoppelman, Raymond Tonsing, Paige Craig, Farmville creator Sizhao Yang, CRV partner Bill Tai, Brian Koo, Paul Bricault and Transmedia.
This Just In: Facebook Makes Millenials Even More Insufferable (TCTV)
Mar 03, 11:45PM
In case recent political uprisings have given us too many reasons to feel good about the impact Facebook is having in the world, we just got a study from Cornell that shows the mega-site is also helping boost millenials' self-esteem. Because, you know, the so-called "self-esteem generation" needs more of that. All quips about millineals aside, the study trumpets the findings as a sign that the Internet is doing something good for the world. To us, it proves the exact opposite. The reason Facebook boosted college kids' self-esteem more than looking in a mirror (we're not kidding, that was the methodology) was because it's an artificial representation of ourselves, the we that we wish we were. Since when did we count self-awareness and true self-examination as negatives? Video below.
It's A Good Day To Be An iPad Competitor . . . Oh Wait, It's Not
Mar 03, 11:22PM
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday introduced the iPad 2 at a special event in San Francisco, taking even more momentum away from its competitors. I've had a lot of people in the last 24 hours tell me that the iPad 2 isn't as revolutionary as the first generation device. Yes, that's true. But not every device a company releases has to be or can be revolutionary. Apple has released three revolutionary products in the last decade alone: iPod, iPhone and iPad. I really can't think of any products from Apple's competitors that fit in the revolutionary category in that same time period.
Chrome OS Get A Big Update — Two Words: Trackpad Fixes
Mar 03, 11:00PM
A couple weeks ago, Google rolled out the beta of Chrome 10, the latest version of their web browser. Today they're bringing it to Chrome OS too — and it contains more goodies. Most importantly, Google is touting trackpad fixes, presumably for the Cr-48 device that people have been testing the OS with. Finally! I haven't had the chance to test out the trackpad fixes yet, but the fact that Google specifically mentions "new trackpad" in the opening sentence of their blog post seems like a good sign.
New Yfrog Aspires To Be A Platform For All Your Social Sharing
Mar 03, 10:59PM
Yfrog is attempting to go beyond being just a photo landing page and comments today, soft launching an entirely new product in beta. This relaunch is a big departure, actually asking users to look at Yfrog as more than just a client for sharing photos on Twitter and more like a social platform. Users on the new Yfrog will have a much more streamlined Yfrog profile with an immediately organized view of all their photos as well as a counter of who they're following and recent links that they've shared. "We're trying to build a unified interface where you can aggregate your social stream in real life and make it useful to people," says founder Jack Levin, ambitiously. 
Trends Show Android Gaining Among The Young And Vivacious
Mar 03, 10:11PM
This little study by Nielson doesn't actually say "vivacious," but it's implied — right there in the headline. The study is just an exercise in statistics and a look at the smartphone market, but it's always worth taking a look and speculating based on the big bottom-line numbers like total market share. These two attractive charts detail the distribution of OSes and manufacturers among smartphone owners, which, it should be noted, make up only about 25% of the mobile-using population, in the US at least. The information is through January of this year, so it's quite current. So who's winning? Everybody, it looks like. It really is a dead heat at the moment, but like Jell-O, there's always room for analysis.
(Founder Stories) Dennis Crowley: "The Hard Part Is Building The Machine That Builds The Product"
Mar 03, 9:37PM
What's the hardest part of building a hot startup? In Part II of his Founder Stories interview, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley tells Chris Dixon it's not building the product, it's building the company that builds the product. The product is easy. Crowley and his team have been thinking about the product for years. "The hard part is building the machine that builds the product," he says. Foursquare has grown from 2 to 50 people, moved into bigger offices, and had to build a backend system that can support millions of users. But all of that was behind the scenes. "This is our year to build all the stuff we have been thinking about," he declares.
Bing, NYT And Everybody Else Wants A Piece Of Groupon's Success
Mar 03, 8:34PM
Does anyone know where I can find some daily deals? Everywhere. Taking a cue from the New York Times and everyone else in the world Bing has launched a daily deals service today, Bing Deals. Now visitors to m.bing.com will find a deals tab that will allow you to search and drill down for localized daily deals around you via mobile. Eventually Bing wants to integrate deals into its homepage as well, as now you have to actually search for the name of a business to find the Bing Deals on the web.
First Hands-On With The Phosphor Reveal Crystal Watch
Mar 03, 8:25PM
The Phosphor Reveal is one of the coolest timepieces I've seen in a long time. This is an extremely simple digital watch with a surprising trick: it shows the time by "flipping" little jewels from dark to light. The face is actually covered in little crystal nubs but some of the nubs can retract into the body of the watch and, in essence, disappear. The watch contains a few hundred Swarovski crystals and uses a micro-magnetic mechanical movement to move them up and down. This model, made and sold by E-ink watchmakers Phosphor will be available on March 7 for an unannounced price. Click through for a video.
Motorola Mobility Invests In HTML5 Game Developer And Publisher Moblyng
Mar 03, 8:07PM
Via its venture arm, Motorola Mobility has made an investment in Moblyng, the game developer and publisher of cross-platform, HTML5-based games. Joining Motorola in the investment round are Mohr Davidow Ventures and Deep Fork Capital. The investment could have been part of this recent filing, which indicated that Moblyng raised $7.5 million out of a $10.9 million round. It appears that Motorola Mobility is not publicly disclosing the amount of the investment. Moblyng games, which have been downloaded more than 9 million times, are developed for and published on Android, Facebook, iOS and WebOS platforms. Originally, the startup focused on building a slideshow creation tool, FlipTrack but in May 2008 decided to change its name to Moblyng and shift to cross-platform game development.
Last 40 Tickets For Sarah Lacy's Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky SF Book Launch Party. Tickets On Sale Now!
Mar 03, 8:01PM
We had an overwhelming response when we first released tickets to Sarah Lacy's SF Book Launch Party, so we wanted to release more! Sarah's number one book, Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How The Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit From Global Chaos, has been called inspiring, fascinating, and outstanding. What better way to celebrate her hugely successful book other than to throw an amazing party?
Ditto: The Social App For What You Should Be Doing
Mar 03, 7:32PM
Think about Foursquare right now. You can tell everyone what you're currently doing, but there's no good mechanism for planning something to do or for getting a recommendation for something to do. Sure, you could use "shouts" that way. But no one does. It's an aspect of realtime that doesn't really work. Enter Ditto, a new service in the space. Ditto is an iPhone app in the location space that goes beyond the check-in. Sure, that's one aspect of it, but if Ditto works as intended, it's hopefully only the end result. "It is about sharing your intent to do something instead of what you've already done," is how founder Jyri Engestrom puts it.
The Twitter Story Fail
Mar 03, 7:22PM
It's amazing to me how wrong The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were on their Twitter fundraising stories last week. All claimed multiple independent sources, but everyone got the story wrong in the same way. Financial Times: "A JPMorgan fund is in talks to acquire a substantial stake in Twitter, one of the fastest-growing social networking sites. WSJ: "J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is in talks with Twitter Inc. to take a minority stake in the rapidly growing microblogging company, people familiar with the matter said...Discussions between J.P. Morgan and Twitter are continuing, and there is no guarantee a deal will be struck, the people added." NYTimes: "It is not clear whether the fund, known as the J.P. Morgan Digital Growth Fund, will invest directly in Twitter, or buy current investors' stakes with the company's consent, these people said." All of these stories were wildly inaccurate. I don't remember a time when the big guys were all throwing around "multiple sources" so freely and all zeroed in on exactly the same wrong story. It makes me think the FT just flubbed it, and the WSJ and NYTime
With "Quick Bar", Twitter Has Figured Out How To Cram Ads Into The Stream
Mar 03, 6:49PM
Twitter has just rolled out a pretty substantial new update to the iOS versions of its app today. Several of the new features look nice, such as the new Tweet box design, and the easier way to find friends via phone contacts. But the most interesting new feature is "Quick Bar" as it finally gives Twitter a way to monetize the app. And it's already annoying a number of users. To be clear, Quick Bar is currently only found on the iPhone version of the app. It resides at the top of the Tweet stream and cycles through currently trending topics (and you can swipe to cycle through them yourself). But the key is that it also includes Promoted Trending Topics here. In other words, it shoves ads into the Tweet stream.
Google Maps Allows You To Tweet Hotpot Reviews; Adds "Pinging" Feature To Check-Ins
Mar 03, 6:29PM
Google is making its local directory Places a bit more social today by allowing users to share Hotpot recommendations and reviews on Twitter directly from Google Maps for Android Phones. As you may remember, Hotpot is Google's new local recommendation service that allows you to rate and review Places. Now in the Android Maps app, you'll be able to Tweet your ratings and reviews with Twitter followers on Twitter directly from the device. Using the app's rating widget, you'll have the option of connecting to Twitter and post a review to your account. 
An Unlikely Entrant In The Location App Race At SXSW: Ask.com
Mar 03, 6:15PM
There's a fairly insane rush currently underway to launch new services in time for SXSW next week. Most of these are obviously startups hoping to hit it big at the conference and ride that success to greatness just as Twitter and Foursquare did. And then there's another player, of an entirely different scale, looking to leverage the conference with a brand new location-based app: Ask.com. When you think of Ask.com, you definitely don't think of a location-based app. But that's exactly what the service has built, completely unrelated to their flagship search engine. And it's actually a pretty cool, simple idea.
Jack Dorsey On Being Ejected From Twitter: "It Was Like Being Punched In The Stomach"
Mar 03, 5:54PM
Jack Dorsey gets the Vanity Fair treatment in a long profile written by David Kirkpatrick (author of The Facebook Effect). It goes over familiar ground for anyone who's been following Dorsey—his obsession with maps and cities, the founding of Twitter, his ouster, and more recently new company Square (which is doing just fine, thank you). But Kirkpatrick pulls it all together into a cohesive narrative peppered with some new details. You learn, for instance, that "Dorsey's personal wealth may well exceed $300 million," Square now has 78 employees and that one day, he says, he wants to become the Mayor of New York City. But it took him a while to find himself. In addition to being a programmer and entrepreneur, Dorsey also tried his hand at being a botanical illustrator, a certified massage therapist, and even took classes in fashion design to try to learn to design jeans (he only got as far as skirts, though, before Twitter took off). The article also delves into Dorsey's strained relationship with Twitter co-founder and former CEO Evan Williams. "Dorsey and Williams, to this day, rarely speak to each other beyond occasional exchanges at board meetings," Kirkpatrick writes. In a passage that delves into those days when Twitter was melting down every day and Dorsey was replaced by Ev as CEO, Dorsey describes how being replaced from his own company made him feel: "It was like being punched in the stomach." Here is the full passage:
WordPress.com Suffers Largest DDoS Attack In Its History
Mar 03, 5:54PM
You have no idea how hard it was to get this post up, as Wordpress.com, our blog host, is currently under a denial of service attack. It's been almost impossible to access the TechCrunch backend for the past 10 minutes (everything seems to be stable now) and users have been receiving a "Writes to the service have been disabled, we will be bringing everything back online ASAP" error message. >From the VIP blog post: WordPress.com is currently being targeted by a extremely large Distributed Denial of Service attack which is affecting connectivity in some cases. The size of the attack is multiple Gigabits per second and tens of millions of packets per second.
The Age Of Relevance
Mar 03, 5:45PM
What's the Next Big Thing after social networking? This has been a favorite topic of much speculation among tech enthusiasts for many years. I think we are already witnessing a paradigm shift – a move away from simple social sharing towards personalized, relevant content. The key element of the next big thing is the increasing significance of the Interest Graph to complement the Social Graph. While Facebook, Twitter, and Google are already working on delivering relevant content, a slew of startups are focusing exclusively on it.
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