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Barnes & Noble Nook Subscribers Will Be Able To Access The NYTimes.com For Free
Apr 05, 1:08PM
A week after Amazon Kindle New York Times subscribers received word that their subscriptions granted them free access to the paper's website, Barnes & Noble Nook subscribers will also be able to access NYTimes.com for free. The New York Times announced its paywall a few weeks ago , which allows for free access to a set amount of content across digital platforms. The Nook subscription for the New York Times costs $19.99 per month, and these users will not have to pay for any content when accessing the NYTimes.com.
FounderLY Wants To Be A Library For Entrepreneurs' Stories
Apr 05, 1:00PM
A new open source project is debuting today as a way to capture stories behind entrepreneurs' startups in a central repository. FounderLY is giving startup founders a platform to share the stories behind their startups through short form interviews (15 minutes in length) conducted by fellow founders. While many of the infamous stories of tech entrepreneurs (Bill Gates and Microsoft, Larry and Sergey and Googe, Steve Jobs and Apple) are documented in print forms, FounderLY's co-creator Matthew Wise felt that there was a need for more candid video interviews from a variety of founders, and he felt the best way to do this was to have fellow entrepreneurs interview each other to capture the best stories. 
Kana Software Buys Social Media Monitoring Platform Overtone
Apr 05, 12:56PM
Kana Software has acquired Overtone, which develops a social media monitoring and customer listening platforms for large, brand name companies. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Overtone, which has raised $20.5 million in funding, develops a SaaS applications that allows companies to monitor social media platforms and analyze customer sentiment, emerging issues, and topic trends. 
Free Electronic Medical Records Service Practice Fusion Raises $23 Million
Apr 05, 12:00PM
Practice Fusion, a web-based electronic medical records and healthcare community, announced this morning that it has closed an impressive $23 million series B round of funding. The round was led by Founders Fund, with participation from Artis Capital Management and Glynn Capital Management, as well as returning investors Morgenthaler Ventures and Felicis Ventures. The healthcare community adds to the $7 million in funding it raised in August 2009 and January 2010, bringing its total funding to $30 million. Launched in 2007, Practice Fusion allows doctors across the country to chart patient visits, review records, schedule appointments, prescribe medications electronically, order and receive lab tests, and connect patients to their health data -- all in realtime. Unlike legacy electronic medical records systems that charged doctors exorbitant fees, Practice Fusion's web-based system is free to health care providers and lives in the cloud.
TechCrunch Europe and The Telegraph release the Startup100
Apr 05, 10:51AM
TechCrunch Europe occasionally partners with other media outlets in Europe in order to support the European ecosystem. Last December we agreed to link up with the London Telegraph newspaper, which planned to put some time and resources into a ranking of promising technology companies in Europe. The Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100 lists 100 top European tech companies. This year, TechCrunch Europe chaired the Telegraph's judging panel, put together by Milo Yiannopoulos, Technology columnist, which included many familiar faces from the European emerging technology industry. The list includes trailblazers like Wonga, SoundCloud and Songkick, as well as start-ups who are aggressively expanding into the US market like Huddle and Skimlinks. It's a great list you should check it out.
StockTwits Gets Even More Social, Rolls Out Discovery Tools
Apr 05, 10:15AM
It's been a good start to the year for StockTwits. For starters, as we reported last week, the realtime info-sharing hub for investors and traders, has doubled its monthly visitors since December. It also recently stole Yahoo Finance products exec David Putnam and added Chris Bullock, who was formerly the senior managing director for global investor relations services at NASDAQ, as its new VP of Corporate Services. Today, the information service announced further developments, saying that it will be rolling out a series of discovery tools to allow its users to more easily find people to follow within its growing community. 
Six Launches At #Techonomy3 – The Latest From The Nation Of Startups
Apr 05, 8:17AM
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit Tel Aviv and get a brief taster of the startup scene here. At one point I was interviewed by The Marker, a business newspaper and, after a couple of days of trying to find someone who wasn't in a startup (outside of the hotel staff) I had to admit to the journalist "If you threw a stone in Tel Aviv, it would probably hit a high-tech entrepreneur." Today, six new startups launch at Techonomy3 in Tel Aviv, joining the mass of startups here, and I would say all of them are pretty interesting one way or another. Here are the individual write-ups on each of the startups which launched (the names of the companies links will go live as they launch): HitPad, Dapsem, Magisto, Tingiz, TVTak and Jumboard. 
>From Search Engines To Lunar Landers: Barney Pell's Next Startup Is Moon Express
Apr 05, 2:49AM
Most people wouldn't think a good follow up to selling your search engine company to Microsoft would be to then start a company that will build lunar landers. But that's exactly what Barney Pell, the cofounder and CEO of Powerset, is up to. He sold Powerset to Microsoft for $100 million in 2008. He still works there, but he's cofounded a new company called Moon Express that plans to build lunar landing craft for commercial purposes. Joining him are Robert Richards (CEO) and, inexplicably, Naveen Jain. How Jain plans to rip people off from space eludes me, but I'm sure he'll figure out a way. Putting Jain aside for a moment (Pell and I have argued for hours about his ethics), Moon Express is an audacious company. They were one of six companies chosen by Nasa to receive funding from it's $30 million Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) project. And they are one of only three companies to actually receive part of that funding. Their aim is to create "reliable precision transports" that will allow people to develop, explore and research the moon. Over time, these landers will be able to return to earth safely with samples, etc. 
AOL Fires A Ton Of Freelancers, HuffPost Doesn't Pay Most Of Its Writers. I Approve.
Apr 05, 2:01AM
Can anyone else hear that? The whining? Like a dentist's drill, or those ultrasonic Mosquito ring tones that kids use at school; only more annoying, and more persistent. Mzzzzz.... The Huffington Post should pay its writers tttzzzzzzzz... it's modern-day slave labor bbzzzzzz.... AOL payout should be shared equally.... pzzzzzz.... calls herself a liberal.... ZZZZZZ.... EXPLOITATION... And now she's fired all those freelancers.... OUTRAGEOUS! Jesus Christ, can someone please shut that freaking thing OFF?
LivingSocial Files To Authorize Up To $565M In Series E [Update: And Raises $400M]
Apr 04, 11:30PM
Reports of daily deals site LivingSocial being in talks to raise around $500 million in Series E are now backed up by LivingSocial's amended and restated Certificate of Incorporation filed on March 31st and unearthed today by the VCExperts blog. The form shows that Hungry Machine Inc, the holding company for LivingSocial, has filed an intent to raise up to $565 million in Series E financing, with 100 million shares authorized, at $5.65 a share. The amended Certificate of Incorporation form confirms that the company is allowed to raise the funds, but doesn't necessarily mean that it already has the money in its coffers. I wouldn't be surprised if we come across the round's SEC Form D sometime soon.
The Product Shakeup At Google Begins
Apr 04, 11:27PM
Larry Page's first day as CEO of Google again after ten years began with a shakeup at the very top of the company. Google's longtime senior VP of product management, Jonathan Rosenberg, announced that he will resign. Rosenberg is an extremely well-respected executive who was often on quarterly conference calls with Eric Schmidt and helped guide the company for the past decade. If Schmidt was the adult supervision for Page and co-founder Sergey Brin, Rosenberg was the adult supervision and management mentor to the other young executives who filled Google's management ranks, including Marissa Mayer, Susan Wojcicki, and Salar Kamangar. Rosenberg was brought on by Schmidt years ago, and the two worked closely together. Rosenberg's stated reason for leaving is that Page asked his senior team to recommit to Google for the long haul and he wasn't planning on staying past 2013. That's fair enough, but his departure also signals the possible start of a shakeup in Google's product management ranks. Page famously has a low opinion of managers, especially product managers who try to tell engineers what to do. "People don't want to be managed," he is quoted in Steven Levy's new book, In the Plex. 
RockHealth Opens Incubator to Get the Web 2.0 Generation into Healthcare
Apr 04, 10:48PM
We've written about the younger generation of consumer Web entrepreneurs taking on enterprise software, aiming to make truly usable business software that-- to put it bluntly-- doesn't suck. Now, at least one group is aiming to apply all the lessons of the consumer Web and mobile apps to revolutionize another neglected, stodgy industry: Healthcare. RockHealth, a new incubator for healthcare IT startups, opened its doors for applications on Friday and has already received more than forty submissions. RockHealth's founder Halle Tecco didn't want to spill the beans on specific ideas, but examples include home health monitoring apps via the iPhone that can update physicians on chronic conditions or iPad games that can be used as hospital therapy for sick kids. This isn't your parent's healthcare IT movement. 
Miso Media's Snazzy Guitar-Teaching iPad App Is Now Live
Apr 04, 10:30PM
Back in September at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, a small company called Miso Media won the People's Choice Award for a very impressive iPad application with a musical bent. The application, which is now called Plectrum, acts as a virtual guitar teacher by actually listening to the notes you're playing, then advancing the music displayed on the screen accordingly. Disrupt attendees weren't the only ones who were impressed: the startup later went on to close a $600K seed round led by Google Ventures. But while it's gotten plenty of buzz, the application itself hasn't been available to users. Until now. Today, the company is announcing that Plectrum is live on the App Store. You can download it right here for $2.99.
Bought By AOL Alongside Patch, Going Will Soon Be Gone
Apr 04, 9:34PM
Back in June of 2009, then-new CEO Tim Armstrong made two acquisitions to move AOL into the local space: Patch and Going. While the verdict is still very much out on Patch, it's clear that AOL is at least committed to it. Going? Not so much. Going will "going away" (they made the joke, not me) on May 1, 2011. The reason? "AOL's refocusing", the team explains in an email sent to users today.
American Airlines' Fares Return To Expedia And Hotwire
Apr 04, 9:30PM
Earlier in January, we heard that American Airlines' fares and links were removed completely from travel bookings site Expedia, after the two companies failed to come to a distribution agreement. Today, American Airlines and Expedia have made peace, announcing a new " memorandum of understanding" that will allow the companies to resume doing business together effective immediately. Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed, but clearly, the airline and travel site were able to come to a mutual agreement that suited their interests financially. American had a similar issue with travel search site Orbitz, and also removed its listings in late December 2010. 
Think AT&T's Bandwidth Cap Is Bad? Try Living Down Under.
Apr 04, 9:19PM
Bandwidth caps. We all love 'em. Wait, no, we hate 'em. Sorry. But even as AT&T gears up to impose bandwidth caps on its DSL subscribers, it should be pointed out that it's hardly the only ISP that does so. You might even say that other countries have it worse.
Twitter And Mediasift Partner To Resell Firehose Data
Apr 04, 8:32PM
Twitter and realtime data curation service Mediasift have just announced a data resell partnership here at the Data 2.0 Conference at the Mission Bay Conference Center. This move is similar to when Twitter partnered with Gnip to make parts of Twitter's firehose commercially available five months ago, except Gnip focuses on bulk instead of vertical searches. 
Facebook For iPhone Gets Event Check-Ins, Maps, And Unfriending
Apr 04, 8:20PM
A couple weeks ago, after All Facebook spotted the ability to check-in to Facebook events, the social network confirmed to us that the feature would be launching shortly on the iPhone and their mobile-based touch site. Today, here it is. Version 3.4 of Facebook's iPhone app actually has a few other nice updates as well. These include the ability to view your friends on a map from the Places area (and it uses Google Maps, not Bing Maps), an "improved" News Feed, an "improved" notifications UI, and the ability to unfriend someone from your phone, finally.
Texas Instruments Acquires National Semiconductor For $6.5 Billion In Cash
Apr 04, 8:19PM
Wow. Texas Instruments has signed an agreement to acquire fellow semiconductor manufacturer National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion, or $25 per share, in an all-cash deal. The boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction, which is expected close in six to nine months. Santa Clara-based National Semiconductor is a semiconductor manufacturer, specializing in analog devices and subsystems. The company's products include power management circuits, display drivers, audio and operational amplifiers, communication interface products and data conversion solutions. 
Rocket Fuel Raises $6.6 Million Series C At $160 Million Valuation
Apr 04, 8:10PM
Display ad optimization startup Rocket Fuel raised $6.6 million in a Series C funding, giving it a $160 million valuation, according to the company. Northgate Capital led the financing. Other investors included Mohr Davidow Ventures, Labrador Capital Fund, Nokia Growth Partners and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Rocket Fuel processes 1.5 billon display ads ever day for major brands, constantly tweaking them acros thousands of variables to improve their targeting. The company is at a $50 million annualized revenue run-rate, which is up from a $30 million run-rate just four months ago. The company takes a completely data-driven approach to improving display ad performance.
Yelp Now Drawing 50 Million Users A Month To Its 17 Million Reviews
Apr 04, 7:53PM
Over the last couple years, there's been a huge surge in the suite of online services referred to collectively as 'local'. There's Facebook Places, which prompts users to check-in and claim deals. There's Google Places, which recently launched its own check-in feature and also aggregates reviews from a variety of online service. And of course there's Foursquare, which popularized the check-in model in the first place and recently launched a new Explore feature. But despite all of this new competition, Yelp — which has been focused on local since 2004 — is still growing at a clip pace. Today the company has surpassed 50 million monthly unique users (as reported by their internal Google Analytics), up from 46 million the month before. And they have a total of 17 million reviews for venues around the world. CEO Jeremy Stoppelman says that the service is seeing a faster rate of growth for both contributions (reviews) and users than it has historically— in Q1, users wrote 2 million reviews, while most quarters average 1 million. In other words, even if some of these other services are gaining traction, it isn't hurting Yelp.
Principal Facebook Tech Recruiter Andy Barton Moves To Quora
Apr 04, 7:32PM
Quora is hiring! How do we know? Well Facebook Tech Recruiter and Team Lead Andy Barton just tweeted that today is his first day at the Q&A service. Leaving Facebook along with Barton is Facebook product manager Sandra Lee Huang. After spending 4 years at Facebook, Andy Barton possibly has the most stacked Rolodex of any person in his field especially with regards to tech talent waiting for vestment and/or IPO. Quora currently has $11 million in funding and 21 employees but something tells me they'll be expanding on both numbers sometime soon.
Twitter Finally Brings Advanced Search Out Of Purgatory; Updates Discovery Algorithms
Apr 04, 7:31PM
A couple weeks ago, we wrote a post wishing Twitter a happy fifth birthday, but also noting that there was still much work to be done. In particular, search and archives range from weak to non-existent. Today, Twitter has taken a few small steps to alleviate at least one of those issues. In a post on their blog, Twitter notes that an update to their search algorithms will now suggest key accounts to follow for any topic you search for. For example, if you search for racing, you'll get a bunch of NASCAR and other folks suggested to you. Previously, these searches were only looking for a term like "racing" in an account's name or username. So yes, this is much smarter, and better.
Tickengo Closes Seed Round With Kima Ventures So You Can Charge Hitchhikers
Apr 04, 7:12PM
With gas at roughly $4/gallon, French carpooling site Covoiturage.fr has just announced some 1 million carpoolers on its site. Now, its competitor Tickengo has just scored a seed round with Kima Ventures. Coincidence? The rather active seed fund of Xavier Niel and Jeremie Berrebi did not reveal the exact amount invested in Tickengo's platform, which was initially launched in 2006 in only 4 French cities: Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse. It wasn't until 2008 that the platform opened up to all of France and later became available to the US, Canada, the UK and Belgium.
With Disclaimers, Health And Legal Knowledge Can Now Flourish On Quora
Apr 04, 6:59PM
As regular readers of this site will be aware, we love Quora. We love it because of the wealth of knowledge that has poured out of seemingly all corners of the tech sphere and into the service. But the service itself has much broader goals than that. They want to be the organized brain-dump for all human knowledge. That obviously means a lot of verticals beyond technology. And a new feature today should help them march towards that goal in two very important verticals: medicine and law. Quora now offers legal and medical disclaimers that any doctor or lawyer can easily place at the bottom of their posts. The service has written these disclaimers in a language for each profession that they believe will protect these individuals; while at the same time making it much more clear to other users that the answers are not a substitution for advice/care from your actual doctor or lawyer. And the key part is that these disclaimers are entirely customizable by each doctor/lawyer to suit their needs.
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