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Reddit, Social News Frontrunner, Is Down To One Developer
Mar 19, 2:41AM
Two out of the three remaining Reddit programmers quietly left the social news community last week, Mike Schiraldi going to Google and David King going to Hipmunk where he joins Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. This means that the over one billion page view a month site is currently running with only one developer (Neil Williams, hired in November) and two sysadmins until it can hire new engineering staff. Reddit, which experiences about 75 million monthly visits and is one of the top 100 most visited sites on the Internet, had six hours worth of downtime yesterday which it chalked up to an Amazon Web Services failure. 
The Pedants' Revolt: Does The AP's Killing Of E-Mail Mark A Worrying Escalation?
Mar 19, 2:28AM
PHOENIX (TC) -- Solemnly they filed into the briefing room at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism: the journalists, the bloggers and those who tweet on behalf of celebrities. Only the scratching of nib against paper and the clicking of keys broke the unpropitious hush, as those in attendance prepared to record the announcement. And then, at the stroke of 2pm, the representatives of the Associated Press took to the stage. Total silence now. The calm before the bombshell: no less impactful for being anticipated. "Daddy," generations of children as yet unborn will ask, "where were you when the Associated Press removed the hyphen from the word 'e-mail'?"
$700,000 Donated To Japan Relief Efforts Via Causes, Salesforce Pledges $25K Matching Grant
Mar 19, 2:06AM
As Japan works to recover from the horrendous earthquake and tsunami that struck last week, many companies and citizens are donating what they can to help. One of the easiest ways to help is to send a text message to the Red Cross (text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation), but there are plenty of other options, particularly if you're looking to support a certain charity or organization. Today, Causes founder Joe Green told me that tens of thousands of donors have given some $700,000 to Japan relief efforts thus far via the online platform. As for the photo above — right now Green is appearing on a local Bay Area NBC special, where a phone bank sits ready to receive calls for donations to the Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Northern California. Salesforce has just agreed to match up to $25,000 in donations to the effort — which comes in addition to the $100,000 they already matched for donations to the Red Cross. You can find the JCCCNC's Cause right here.
Google Ventures Launches $10,000 Startup Referral Program For Employees
Mar 19, 1:24AM
If you're a Google employee and you know about a stealth startup that wants funding, you can pocket a cool $10,000. The Google Ventures team announced the new program at Google's weekly all-hands "TGIF" meeting, earlier this afternoon. It's pretty straightforward. If a Google employee knows about a startup that Google Ventures might be interested in, they fill out a form on an internal website. They state why they like the startup, and they need to be prepared to give a "warm introduction" to a key employee at the startup. If Google Ventures invests, the employee that referred the startup gets the $10,000 in cash. It's modeled on Google's in house employee referral program, Google Ventures partners Bill Maris and David Krane tell me, although the payout is much higher for startup referrals.
Wow, Google Has Ported My Ten Thousand Button Nightmare To The iPhone!
Mar 19, 12:26AM
Back in October of last year, I got my first glance at the Sony Google TV remote. I immediately broke out into a cold sweat and hives. I mean, just look at the thing. Our collective living rooms are already a nightmare of boxes and cords — Sony and Google managed to translate that nightmare into remote control form as well. And now that nightmare is going virtual. Earlier today, Google announced the Google TV Remote app for the iPhone. On one hand, it's great that they're willing to release this on a rival platform. On the other, ahhhhhhhhh!
CrunchBoard Jobs: We're Hiring
Mar 18, 11:17PM
TechCrunch is hiring. Come work with us! The positions we have available right now are: Executive Support: Executive Assistant - San Francisco, CA Product and Engineering: Web Developer - Ruby on Rails - San Francisco, CA CrunchBase Manager - San Francisco, CA
Netflix Original Content Is Much More Than A Strategy Shift — It Could Shift An Industry
Mar 18, 10:14PM
Three years ago, if you had asked people to choose between cable television and Netflix, the vast majority would have laughed at you. A DVD-by-mail service versus thousands of pieces of content always at your fingertips? No one is laughing anymore. Netflix has confirmed that they intend to pay for House of Cards a new show being produced by David Fincher (yes, he of Fight Club, The Social Network, etc) and starring Kevin Spacey (yes, he of The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, etc). Netflix is not paying for the full production of it, but instead they're paying for the first-rights access to air it. In other words, they get the first "window" to show it to viewers.
Q: What Does It Say About The Wisdom Of The Crowd That "White People Stink" Has Been Trending On Twitter For Almost 24 Hours?
Mar 18, 10:05PM
A: Everything.
Kevin Rose Resigns From Digg, Closing Round On New Startup
Mar 18, 9:49PM
Wow, when I wrote last night that Kevin Rose doesn't really use Digg anymore, I had no idea how perfect the timing was. It turns out Rose really has tuned out. Because, say multiple sources, he's already resigned from the company and is closing a $1+ million financing round for a new startup he's founded. Rose first launched Digg in December 2004. The service was an instant hit, and for a long while just all the big players thought about acquiring the company. Things never got so close as they did in mid-2008, when Google took Digg all the way to the altar before walking away at the last minute. Digg would have been sold for some $200 million. Every employee knew about the deal because Google had interviewed them all individually. Credit to then-CEO Jay Adelson for getting everyone back on track after the deal fell apart. But those were the glory days for Digg. The site faded as newer services like Twitter and Facebook became ubiquitous. Rose and Adelson had a falling out, Rose stopped coming by the office much for months, and one of them had to go. It was Adelson. Rose took over as CEO until they hired Matt Williams last Fall.
With A New Name In Tow, MyPad's 'Facebook For iPad' App Hits 3 Million Downloads
Mar 18, 9:43PM
Back in January I wrote about an iPad application called Facepad, which drew heavy inspiration from Twitter's iPad application to create a similar 'swipable' experience for Facebook that lets you jump between open pages by swiping left and right (it's pretty slick). The application has hit a couple of speed bumps — Facebook asked it to change its name, so it's now called MyPad — but it's still drawing plenty of users, many of whom are spending a lot of time in the app every day. You can download MyPad on the App Store right here. Cofounder Cole Ratias says that the application has now surpassed 3 million downloads since it launched in January, and that on average users are spending nearly 3.5 million minutes inside the application per day. They're also uploading around 4,000 photos each day through the app.
Right Media Founder Michael Walrath Becomes Chairman of Yext
Mar 18, 9:24PM
Local advertising startup Yext has a new chairman, Michael Walrath. Walrath was the founder and CEO of Right Media, an online advertising exchange which he sold to Yahoo for $850 million in 2007. Since then he's been investing and starting other projects. One of his biggest investments is Yext, where he is the largest individual shareholder outside the company. Walrath became a board member of Yext about a year and a half ago when he first invested in the company's $25 million series B. Now that he is taking chairman role, he will be at Yext's New York City offices once a week plotting the overthrow of the online local advertising world with CEO Howard Lerman. (The two are pictured here enjoying some green St. Patrick's Day champagne yesterday when they told me the news). 
The Sun Will Set For Yahoo's AlltheWeb On April 4
Mar 18, 9:16PM
As we heard in late December, Yahoo was planning to "sunset" a number of its products, including Delicious, AltaVista, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Bookmarks, Yahoo! Picks, and AlltheWeb. While we all assumed sunsetting meant shutting the product down, Yahoo said it was actually looking to find a better home for Delicious. But Yahoo recently notified users that it would be shutting down MyBlogLog in May. And it appears that in the case of AlltheWeb, sunsetting is also leading to the search engine's demise. As stated on AllTheWeb's front page: Yahoo! will be closing AlltheWeb on April 4, 2011, as we focus on other features to improve your search experience. Starting on April 4, 2011, http://www.alltheweb.com will redirect to Yahoo! Search at http://search.yahoo.com. Thanks for your understanding.
Hitler Weighs In On SXSW Jumping The Shark
Mar 18, 8:35PM
To save all 15 of you the effort of writing a response to MG's "Saying 'SXSW Is Over' Is Over" post right now, the "Has SXSW Interactive jumped the shark" discussion has hit Godwin's Law. That's right someone has made a Hitler's Downfall video where the Fuhrer shares his views on how much the conference has sold out as its scaled, thereby symbolically decreeing the "SXSW is Over" meme officially, yes, over. 
Ask a VC: Peter Barris on Scaling the VC Business and Snagging the First Stake in Groupon (TCTV)
Mar 18, 7:00PM
My guest this week on Ask a VC is Peter Barris of NEA. NEA is one of the oldest venture firms in the country, one of the first to be bicoastal and one that unabashedly sticks to the same mega-fund strategy in good times and bad. Reader questions for Barris included everything from how to avoid getting cheated by bad VCs and what metrics he looks at when investing in an ecommerce company. And for those of you who write in week after week asking why more VCs don't invest in the rest of America-- Barris is an investor after your own heart. He tells the story of how loyalty for his hometown of Chicago has lead to a burgeoning portfolio of promising deals-- including the first venture stake in Groupon. 
Songkick Poaches A Big Hitter CTO Out Of Google
Mar 18, 6:55PM
Live bands site Songkick has achieved something fairly rare for a European startup. Rare enough to be worth a mention, at least. In common with what appears to be a trend of Google people escaping to new startups in the Valley, it's hired a big gun out of Google's London office. Dan Crow, a former Tech Lead/Manager at Google for search and mobile, has an impressive CV. He's a PhD in Machine Learning, worked at Apple and is a former a co-founder of three start-ups in the Valley including the wildly successful Blurb. He then did six years at Google in NYC and London. 
Seeing Interactive Changes Name To OwnLocal, Launches Hyper-Local Deals Network
Mar 18, 6:29PM
YCombinator-backed Seeing Interactive, which helps small publishers maintain market share against national competitors like AOL's Patch, has changed its name to OwnLocal today, expanding beyond providing ad services for newspapers and launching a daily deals network for publications and communities. "We want to help local markets own their own markets," says CEO Lloyd Armburst. The Daily Deals platform will join OwnLocal's suite of product offerings including white-label Yelp-like directory Local Hero, Web Builder and a print to web ad converter. OwnLocal wants to equip smaller local papers with the tools they need to sell ads and get revenue to fund local reporters, Daily Deals being one such tool.
Keen On… Bruce Sterling: What Comes After the Future? (TCTV)
Mar 18, 6:20PM
So what comes after the future? I asked Bruce Sterling at SXSW. But, for Bruce, the future is really the past. "I like narratives," he told me, while explaining why the most "effective" futurists are good historians. So perhaps, using this logic, what comes after the future is history. And Bruce is certainly an effective futurist as well as a good historian. Which is why when I asked him about today's Internet obsession with "the social," he riffed with dark euphoria about the history of socialism as well as what it's like to be a 15-year-old kid with no knowledge of the past. Video ahead.
Zynga Adds Team From Mobile And Video Game Developer Floodgate Entertainment
Mar 18, 6:01PM
In Zynga's 10th acquisition in ten months, the social gaming giant is announcing the acquisition of the team from Massachusetts game developer Floodgate Entertainment. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Floodgate has developed a number of casual, mobile and PC titles, including MoPets, Madden 2005 and 2006, Nascar 07, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Flowerz and others. Floodgate's team of developers and engineers will join the Zynga Boston team (which was started via Zynga's Conduit Labs acquisition). Floodgate's founder, Paul Neurath, will be joining Zynga Boston joining as Creative Director. 
TechCrunch Giveaway: A Motorola Xoom #TechCrunch
Mar 18, 5:21PM
For today's giveaway, we are giving away a Motorola Xoom. The Motorola Xoom is the world's first tablet with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). We've written numerous posts on whether or not we think this is better than other tablets, but we wanted to give you a chance to decide and tell us what you think. Not only does the Xoom have Honeycomb, it has a pretty amazing bootup screen which you can check out here. If you want a chance at winning the Motorola Xoom, all you have to do is follow the steps below.
Xobni Is Coming To Gmail, Android, And iPhone (100 Beta Invites)
Mar 18, 4:46PM
Ever since Xobni launched at the first TechCrunch 40, it's been about Outlook and then Blackberry. But those of us who use Gmail also want to make our inboxes smarter. Today, Xobni is launching aprivate beta for Gmail, and will soon also launch iPhone and Android apps. The first 100 readers to sign up for the Gmail beta will get in (use the code XOBNI-TC100). The Gmail app comes in the form of a browser extension for either Chrome or Firefox (Safari and IE will come later). Once you install it, a Xobni sidebar appears in your Gmail Inbox. Once you allow it to index your contacts and hook it up to your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, it starts to show you all sorts of relationship data. Contact search in the Xobni box is hella fast, much faster than searching in the Gmail search box (but only for contacts, it does not index the entire text of your messages). 
Bit.ly Unveils New Mobile Site To Shorten, Share And Track Links On The Go
Mar 18, 4:44PM
Bitly has just rolled out a brand new mobile site, to allow tablet and smartphone users to shorten, share and track links on the go. The HTML5 optimized version of Bitly's webite is cross-platform so it works on a variety of devices, including the iPad, iPhone and Android devices. As we heard from Bitly CEO John Borthwick recently, Bitly saw a massive 7 billion clicks on its links last month alone. Similar to Bit.ly's web site, you can shorten, share and track links. But the mobile site includes a number of mobile-centric features that make the site easier to use. For example, if you shorten a link while your phone isn't connected to the internet, Bitly will save the link and shorten it when you have internet connectivity. 
Can HighGear Media Turn Lousy Blog Economics into a Huge Exit? (TCTV)
Mar 18, 4:00PM
Earlier today, we posted an interview with Matt Heist, CEO of HighGear Media, an auto blog that hit four million uniques last month. That may not sound too jaw-dropping but gearheads are a surprisingly neglected online audience, and HighGear has proven a haven for car enthusiasts and the journalists that love to write for them. Two of the Valley's top venture funds certainly believe HighGear has something special-- Accel and Greylock have invested $12 million in the quiet company. That strikes me as a lot of cash for a blog network, especially given the difficult margins and the relatively small valuations being paid for the few blogs that have exited. Huffington Post and Gawker are likely two of the only properties with valuations in the hundreds of millions. So how does Heist expect to keep his investors happy? 
Opt-Out Cookie Error Earns Chitika A Whopping 55 Cents And An FTC Inquiry
Mar 18, 3:37PM
Search-targeted advertising network Chitika reached a settlement this week with the Federal Trade Commission over illegally tracking consumers behavior online. According to the FTC, Chitika allowed users to opt out of having cookies placed on their browsers and receiving targeted ads, but unfortunately, Chitika's opt-out only lasted 10 days. After this period, Chitika continued to track these consumers' behavior on the web even though they opted out. This took place from at least May 2008 through February 2010, says the FTC. Chitika says this was an unintentional error in their tracking systems. How much was it worth to Chikita to flaunt the privacy rules? Not much. Chitika tells us that it earned an estimated $0.55 from the users who requested to opt out but were tracked starting ten days after their request instead of ten years. Basically, their claim is that this was totally accidental and not a way to create more revenue (illegally) for the network. Chitika's cookies track search history and sites visited but the network says no personally identifiable information is collected – the cookies contain no information on a user's name, age, gender, etc.
Footbo Raises $2.5 Million, Swings For The Fences With New Fantasy Baseball Game
Mar 18, 3:36PM
Exclusive - Footbo, a provider of interactive sports sites and applications, has raised an additional $2.5 million from Pitango, the Israeli VC firm who has now invested about $4.5 million in the startup. Footbo announced the financing round as it formally launches its latest venture, 11Runs, a new fantasy baseball game. The new initiative is Footbo's latest move as it vies for a leading position in the world of fantasy sports - the site complements the company's 11Kicks ('real' football, which Americans call soccer) and 11Rush (for the sport Americans, in turn, call football) websites. 
(Founder Stories) Foodspotting's Soraya Darabi: "Most Social Networks Were Inspired By East Asian Tech Trends"
Mar 18, 2:44PM
People love to take pictures of their food, especially with their mobile phones. And like all things mobile, apparently this activity started in Japan. "Most social networks have been inspired by East Asian tech trends," declares Foodspotting co-founder Soraya Darabi on this episode of Founder Stories (watch the video). At least that is where the idea for Foodspotting came from when her co-founder Alexa Andrzejewski was visiting Japan and noticed everybody snapping pics of their food with their phones. Now Foodspotting geotags those pics and lets you share them with your foodie friends. Darabi, who started out as the manager of digital partnerships and social media for the New York Times , talks about how Foodspotting got started, its mission to help "the world discover great dishes," and some of its recent traction. The company recently raised $3 million, now has more than 650,000 downloads of its iPhone app alone, launched an Android app, and its website traffic doubled in January. 
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