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Privalia Raises $123.4 Million, Buys German Online Fashion Retailer 'Dress for Less'
Mar 07, 10:20AM
Privalia is very serious about becoming a major private online sales club on a global scale, kicking up its European presence up a notch with the acquisition of Germany's online clothing and apparel retailer Dress for Less. The site was acquired from Palamon Capital Partners, a pan-European private equity firm, and Privalia has disclosed that it raised 88 million euros ($123.4 million) in new equity financing from General Atlantic, Highland Capital Partners, Index Ventures and Insight Ventures Partners as part of the transaction. With the acquisition, Privalia has expanded its geographic reach to Germany (it was already operational in Spain, Italy, Mexico and Brazil) but also extends its business model into the open site, discount and full price segments. In other words, Privalia is on its way to becoming a global online fashion retail powerhouse.
Love The Twitter #Dickbar? Get Your Own, We Did
Mar 07, 7:28AM
Regardless of what you think about the Quick Bar in the newest version of Twitter for iOS, there's no contesting that it's definitely captured tech pundits' imaginations for the past weekend or so. This happened primarily because of general ad aversion but was aided by the fact that influential tech blogger John Gruber catchily dubbed it the Dick Bar, in homage to both new Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and the fact that the "alerting function" is a little obtrusive and a little too hard on (that's what she said) Promoted Trends, which really aren't trends at all but ads, costing advertisers around 100K a pop. 
Shed Simove: "I Suggested 'Lie Pad' But Apple Didn't Like That Either" [NSFW, TCTV]
Mar 07, 2:25AM
For reasons too odd to get in to right now, I'm writing this from the Hollywood Hills, in a house owned by the voice of one of the Rugrats. I'm here with a gang of old friends from London, many of whom I've written about before. One new friend, though, is Sheridan "Shed" Simove, who describes himself as the "Ideas Man". It's an apt nickname for a serial entrepreneur -- but while most entrepreneurs are obsessed with building their ideas into apps and websites, Shed's creativity remains firmly rooted in the real world. In the video below, Shed talks about his latest book, "What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex" and shows off a few of his amazing creations, including the "Martin Loofah King", the "Flying Fuck" and the "Not Pad", a very special version of the iPad while got him into some of the most amazingly comical legal trouble with Apple. On a slightly (slightly) more serious note, Shed explains how he uses Chinese sourcing sites like Alibaba to take his ideas from inception to execution in just a few weeks. It may not surprise you to hear that the conversation is not entirely safe for work.
Facebook Comments Have Silenced The Trolls — But Is It Too Quiet?
Mar 07, 2:03AM
As you've noticed by now, we're about a week into our latest experiment in troll-slaying with Facebook Comments. So far, the reactions have been very mixed and very interesting. Publicly, many of the reactions were initially negative. But that has been shifting as time has gone on. Privately, most of the reactions have been positive. But not all of them. We appreciate the feedback. More importantly, is the system actually working? Well, yes — the real question is: is it working too well?
In Search Of The Internet Kill Switch
Mar 06, 11:18PM
The complete internet shutdown this week in Libya involved a new way to turn off web access for an entire country. Earlier this year, the total internet blockade in Egypt backfired and emboldened the protesters. China is well known for blocking internet services, but it's not just China. Of course, having the government turn off the internet could never happen in the United States. We couldn't condemn the action in other countries while at the same time plan it here. No one would even suggest such a thing, right? Wrong. The topic came up last June when Senators Joseph Lieberman, Susan Collins and Thomas Carper introduced the controversial "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010". [PDF] One vague provision in the bill gave the President the power to "authorize emergency measures to protect the nation's most critical infrastructure if a cyber vulnerability is being exploited or is about to be exploited." It became known as the internet "kill switch" bill even though the words 'kill' and 'switch' are not found in the bill.
YouGotListings Offers A Broker-Tested Rental Listing Management Software
Mar 06, 7:09PM
There's no question that technology has helped redefine the real estate industry. With the success of Trulia, Zillow and others, it's clear that there is a huge market for providing the real estate sector with online tools. Y Combinator-backed startup YouGotListings is adding an innovative product for brokers and landlords with the launch of its simple, easy to use rental listings management software. While there are a number of startups who are playing in the space, YouGotListings has an interesting back story. The idea for the startup was founded a few years ago by engineers Gordon Chen and John Li as a way to provide real estate brokers with a listings management platform and landlords with an easy way to market their properties to brokers and consumers. But the startup's founders quickly learned that the real estate market can be a tough industry to break into without any insider knowledge.
The Coolest Tech Tour Ever: A Look At How SRI Is Augmenting The Human Condition
Mar 06, 6:00PM
Editor's note: the following is a guest post by Robert Scoble, who studies tech startups and innovators for Rackspace Hosting. His videos usually go up on Rackspace's Building43. In the post he shares a tour he recently got of SRI International, the Silicon Valley R&D lab where the computer mouse was invented. It also has played a role in many other things, from Disneyland to Polaris Missiles and armor for tanks, not to mention it was one of the first four nodes on the Internet. You might be like my friends, who thought that the computer mouse was invented at PARC, Xerox's R&D lab. It wasn't. Instead the computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart at SRI International and, in the mother of all demos, showed it, and a number of other key features of computing that we all know like windows and hypertext, off in December, 1968. I wondered "what is SRI International" up to now and do they have anything interesting cooking that could turn into another interesting startup? That led to this tour, where Norman Winarsky, VP of Ventures at SRI, and Bill Mark, VP of Information Sciences Division at SRI, introduce me to many of the people who work there and show me around many of its most interesting labs. Because this tour was so extensive, I've split it up into separate videos so you can watch what you're interested in and get a sense of just how many diverse projects this influential R&D lab is.
Jump Ball
Mar 06, 6:00PM
By the end of the iPad 2 launch event this Wednesday, you could see a future without Windows. Not just Office dead, or in the cloud. An alternate universe, a path not taken, a recall of global proportions. As Doc Searls may have said or something like it, dead OS walking. Everything about Wednesday was about what wasn't yet said. As Steve Jobs moved through the material — the relentless comedy of competitors not quite getting there, of ideas bubbling up from the glass formerly known as a toy, of what was thinner, faster, smarter — the more you could see of what is going to happen to OS X, aka the Mac. The Mac is the new Apple II, it is being revealed. AirPlay is the new surface, push notification the Matrix, the combination of signals the canvas on which magic really is being practiced.
Apple's JointVenture For Business Gets Official
Mar 06, 5:00PM
Apple has officially launched its JointVenture support for small businesses. Support comes from the Apple store and will be provided by the Apple Genius Bar. The plan is only available to business customers when purchasing a Mac, but the $499 service will include training and support for up to five "systems," which include iOS devices and Cinema Displays.
Why Payments Are Hard, Even For Apple And Google
Mar 06, 5:00PM
Editor's note: Guest author Ohad Samet is an expert in managing fraud and other risks in payments systems. He was previously a senior manager at PayPal and blogs at As Risky At It Gets. We hear a lot of chatter about new payment services, and who's competing in the space, and obviously who'll win the space or own a big piece of it. Lately we've seen some movement when both Apple and Google announced new payment options for digital publishers and exchanged a few blows. So are the giants going to displace PayPal soon?
iBoobs Reborn: Undaunted, The Famous Chest App Comes To Android
Mar 06, 4:28PM
When Apple kicked iBoobs out of the App Store in 2008, they struck a blow against freedom what was heard around the world. Some historians believe that the Great iBoobs Reaping of 2008 is the cause of our current economic and societal malaise, and who are we to question their findings? But friends: the times they are a changin'. iBoobs, an app that allows you to shake the mammaries of various female avatars, is back... on the Android Marketplace. That's right: Google understands freedom and the makers of iBoobs, Mystic Game Development, understand the lure of breasts. Like chocolate and peanut butter, these two great tastes can now taste great together. Mystic writes: [Potentially NSFW Video After The Jump]
Why Silicon Valley Immigrant Entrepreneurs Are Returning Home
Mar 06, 2:45PM
NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw visited Silicon Valley last month to meet immigrant entrepreneurs. At Microsoft's Mountain View campus, he met with a dozen of them. More than half said that they might be forced to return to their home countries. That's because they have the same visa issues that Kunal Bahl had. Unable to get a visa that would allow him to start a company after he graduated from Wharton in 2007, Kunal returned home to India. In February 2010, he started SnapDeal—India's Groupon. Instead of creating hundreds of jobs in the U.S., Kunal ended up creating them in New Delhi. At a time when our economy is stagnating, some American political leaders are working to keep the world's best and brightest out. They mistakenly believe that skilled immigrants take American jobs away. The opposite is true: skilled immigrants start the majority of Silicon Valley startups; they create jobs.
Google Responds To Android Malware, Will Fix Infected Devices And 'Remote Kill' Malicious Apps
Mar 06, 6:19AM
On March 1, news broke that dozens of malicious applications had made their way to Android Market, each infected with a rootkit that could grant hackers deep access to Android devices that installed them. Google removed the malicious applications from Android Market within a few minutes of being notified, but has otherwise remained silent on the situation. Until now (at 10PM on a Saturday...) Google has now confirmed that 58 malicious applications were uploaded to Android Market, and that they were downloaded onto around 260,000 devices before Google removed the apps Tuesday evening. That number sounds alarmingly high, but Google believes that only device-specific information, namely the phone's IMEI number, was compromised — and that no personal data or account information was ever transferred. Given that these apps were getting root access, this could have been a lot worse. Now the cleanup begins.
Technology Is Crucial To The Big Society, Says Lord Of Silicon Roundabout
Mar 06, 6:18AM
Nat Wei (@natwei), is a social entrepreneur and adviser to the UK Government on their "Big Society" project. As one of the youngest people ever to have been made a Life Peer of the House of Lords, Lord Wei is the founding and former lead partner of the Shaftesbury Partnership, and a member of the founding team of Teach First. As "Baron Wei of Shoreditch" he is intensely interested in the emergence of the cluster of startup technology companies in the Shoreditch/Hoxton area of London which has come to be known as Silicon Roundabout and which has informed the UK government's new "East London Tech City" initiative. This week will be the first in a series of guest posts on the use of technology in re-building civic society. The Big Society is an approach being championed inside and outside of the government in the UK and increasingly in other countries to enable citizens to take more control over their lives, based on the belief that people often know how to solve the problems they care about and improve their communities better than anyone else. Whilst built on centuries old principles, it is also optimistic about the power of technology, and has been inspired by the more open, inclusive, and effective ways of working expressed through the internet, social media, and crowd sourcing. 
The App Wall
Mar 06, 1:47AM
A couple nights ago, a friend sent me a message. "So glad we finally have a way to talk without hanging out." He was, of course, kidding. He sent me the message through Yobongo, a new location-based realtime chatting app that launched this week. Earlier in the day, we had a similar conversation on GroupMe. And before that, Beluga. And HeyTell. And Facebook Messages. But his joke also has a serious subtext. Increasingly, I find myself running into a wall. I'm using too many apps of the same nature for any of them to actually be truly useful. And in fact, I now have too many apps in my life in general. I've hit the app wall.
955 Dreams Plays The iPad Like Jazz
Mar 05, 11:45PM
"The shallow experience for a user has to be very interesting. The deep experiences have to be profound." That statement, which is profound itself, is how 955 Dreams co-founder Kiran Bellubbi approaches app creation. And so far, that approach is working — very well. The companies hit app, The History of Jazz, has been earning rave reviews and selling like crazy. And it's not a $0.99 app selling like crazy — The History of Jazz is priced at $9.99. In the age of cheap apps, that may seem like a lot. But the model is working for 955 Dreams because they feel they've hit on a deeper experience that the iPad can offer. "I think it could have been $12.99. We always tell people it's on sale," Bellubbi jokes. "It's tough to price chewing gum."
View Is Like Foursquare Tips, But Visual And In Realtime #SXSW
Mar 05, 10:41PM
Right now in private beta and planning on launching right before SXSW, location relevancy service View wants to tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. Unlike Foursquare Tips, there's no checking in to View, you just open the app and the relevant information ("discovery") comes to you on your View Wall in realtime. Discoveries like "The wi-fi password to this restaurant is gofish123,""Amy is the best waitress here, plus she gives free drinks," and "Did you know that President Nixon gave a speech in this building?" are accompanied by photos and location. 
OMG/JK: A Kiss For iPad 2, A Slap For Xoom
Mar 05, 8:56PM
It's war! This week, I went to the unveiling of the iPad 2 and got some hands-on time with the device afterwards. Meanwhile, Jason bought a Xoom and has been extensively testing it out. The consensus? iPad 2: Good. Xoom: Bad. At least for now. I haven't extensively played with iPad 2 yet, and Google is undoubtedly going to patch the Xoom. But still, first impressions are key. Jason and I discuss these two products in depth in this week's episode of OMG/JK, and we also dive into the upcoming group messaging war that is likely to break out at SXSW next week. Now that Facebook has bought Beluga and really kicked everything into a frenzy, the ultimate winners are far from clear.
Fly Or Die: The iPad2, ecoATM, and SocialEyes
Mar 05, 8:00PM
Last week was about the other tablets, but this week was all about the iPad 2. You've read all the posts and previews, but will it fly as high as Steve Jobs says it will? And what, if anything could kill the iPad 2? Watch this episode of Fly or Die to find out. Crunchgear editor John Biggs and I also discuss the prospects of two new startups that just launched this week at DEMO, ecoATM and SocialEyes. The ecoATM is a kiosk that takes your old cell phones and recycles them for cash. SocialEyes, which I covered earlier this week, brings your Facebook friends into a multiple-party video chat experience.
'Tweet Viewer' Virus Spreads On Twitter
Mar 05, 7:51PM
There is something amazing about how desperately humans want to see who has viewed their online profiles. This desire has been taken advantage of (again) by Twitter spammers as tweets like "WOW! You can see WHO VISITS your TWITTER profile. That's cool! :) - http://bit.ly/tweetviewer" and "I just viewed my TOP20 Profile STALKERS. I can't believe my EX is still checking me every day" are proliferating this morning, at about 159 tweets a minute. The "See Who Viewed Your Profile" application preys upon this exact curiosity, asking users for Twitter oAuth, and then using that authorization to tweet out the above. And while it's not clear that it's doing anything behind the scenes, at the moment it is definitely using the acces
First Piece of Mozilla's Web Apps Project Arrives, But Can it Outfox Chrome?
Mar 05, 7:30PM
At great long last, Mozilla has revealed the first developer release of their Web Apps Project, which aims to build the infrastructure for an open web app ecosystem. Back in May of 2010, Google announced plans for what would become the Chrome Web Store. Mozilla responded immediately with plans for its own web store, now known as the Web Apps Project. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google was first to the punch; the Chrome Web Store launched in December, and we've been waiting for Mozilla's "more open" rejoinder since. The initial phase of Mozilla's project is finally here and shows that the company is making a serious attempt to take advantage of what few limitations there are in Chrome's ecosystem. Of course, whether it can compete toe-to-toe in the long run remains to be seen.
Gillmor Gang 3.5.11 (TCTV)
Mar 05, 6:00PM
The Gillmor Gang — Cluetrain co-author Doc Searls, Betaworks' John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, and Kevin Marks — explored Apple's launch of the iPad 2 and its impact on the linked worlds of television, technology, and the social wave. Scoble and I were lucky enough to attend the launch event and the appearance of Steve Jobs to a standing ovation. There may have been no "one more thing" but the event itself seemed to have that aura about it. Funny, passionate, and not about to miss this event if he could help it, Jobs alternated between a detailed dissection of Apple's lead in the marketplace and simply standing back and marveling at the power of this emergent platform. . 
(Founder Stories) Foursquare's Dennis Crowley: "Stop Sketching, Start Building"
Mar 05, 4:35PM
All this week, we've been running segments of our Founder Stories interview with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley (see links at bottom for past episodes, or watch the whole 45 minute interview below). In this final episode (video above), Crowley answers some rapid fire questions from host Chris Dixon. What was his best business decision ever? What does he like least about being a CEO? Who are his mentors? What are his favorite iPhone apps? And what advice does he have for other founders? You'll have to watch the clip above to find out, but I will tell you his answer to the last question. "Forget about where you want to be and go out and build stuff. Dodgeball came from being bored at work, . . . things happen because you make them happen. Stop sketching, and start building." Good advice. (Videos after the jump). 
RIM Finally Sees The Light. Unfortunately, It's An Onrushing Train – Or Is It?
Mar 05, 2:11PM
Strange things are afoot in my hometown of Waterloo, Canada, which doubles as Research In Motion's headquarters. ShopSavvy says that someone there has been running their Android app — on BlackBerry devices. Separately, Bloomberg has reported that RIM's forthcoming PlayBook tablet will run Android apps. A video from the Mobile World Congress allegedly shows a BlackBerry employee confirming "We'll also support Android apps." Their UK managing director refuses to comment on the subject. And if rumours of the mountain en route to Mohammed aren't enough, there are also reports of Mohammed travelling to the mountain: BGR claims that RIM will soon release their prized BlackBerry Messenger as an Android/iOS app. Thus far it's all just smoke and rumors, no confirmed fire ... which is also how one could describe the PlayBook itself. RIM first announced the device back in September. My very first TechCrunch post in November was in part about how RIM should embrace Android, he said slightly smugly. Since then, Samsung has released the Galaxy Tab, Dell the Streak 7, and Motorola the Xoom; next week, the iPad 2 will emerge — and yet the PlayBook still has no firm ship date. But at least RIM have been busy on the BlackBerry front, right? I mean, in the last four months, they have announced or released ... er ... exactly zero new handsets. (They have, however, announced three new VaporBooks. I'm sorry, PlayBooks.) Perhaps they were focused on shoring up their inferior app-development tools? Ask this developer, whose caustic and hilarious rant about RIM's extreme developer-unfriendliness went viral in the hacker community last week.
Wow. Just… Wow: Facebook Hits Record $75 Billion Valuation On SecondMarket
Mar 05, 2:53AM
Last week, in our weekly report on the insanely hot Facebook stock trading going on behind the scenes on SecondMarket, I wrote the following: "Do I hear $75 billion next week?" I was sort of kidding. But it looks like the joke is on me! Sure enough, Facebook did hit a $75 billion valuation on SecondMarket this week, a new record.
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