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Matrix Partners Closes $650 Million Funds To Invest More In China, India
Apr 29, 1:55PM
Matrix Partners, a US-based investment firm with additional offices in India and China, this morning announced that it has closed two new funds: Matrix Partners China II (at $350 million) and Matrix Partners India II (at $300 million). The funds bring the firm's total international assets under management to $650 million in China and $600 million in India. Matrix Partners established an India presence back in 2006 and has an experienced entrepreneur running its investment team there: Avnish Bajaj, co-founder and former CEO of India's largest online marketplace Baazee.com (acquired by eBay). The firm has been active in China since 2008.
The Future of Advertising Will Be Integrated
Apr 29, 1:30PM
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Mark Suster (@msuster), a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster at Bothsidesofthetable Banner Ads. They first started in 1994 and are therefore almost as old as the Web itself. They were very effective back then, with the original ad garnering a 78% click-through rate (CTR)! I guess from there we had nowhere to go but down. Nowadays banner ads get on average 0.2% CTR meaning for every 1,000 ads that are served up only 2 people click on them. And as Jon Steinberg of Buzzfeed points out, the CTRs for social media banner ads are just 0.08%. Holy Shiitake!
Twitter Gets Hit With Bizarre Class Action Lawsuit Over Unsolicited SMS Notifications
Apr 29, 12:50PM
Two California residents, Drew Moss and Sahar Maleksaeedi, have filed a rather peculiar class action lawsuit against Twitter (see documents embedded below). Basically, they're suing over the fact that Twitter sent a confirmatory SMS to their cellphone after they themselves used an SMS command ('STOP') meant to turn off all phone notifications. The two men allege that Twitter has engaged in unlawful conduct by contacting them on their mobile phones without their consent, which they say is a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) and an invasion of their privacy.
eBay: Searches For Royal Wedding Products Up 1,815 Percent In 2011
Apr 29, 12:45PM
The Royal Wedding is finally over, and William and Kate are hitched. The wedding goes beyond just a ceremony, the event is actually a huge business. Between replicas of Kate Middleton's engagement ring and Royal Wedding china, retailers are profiting off of the nuptials. And eBay and its merchants are part of this business. Here are a few stats related to the searches and purchases of wedding-related items on the marketplace.
Zwapp Puts A Social Layer Over Your iPhone Apps
Apr 29, 11:31AM
Sharing what mobile apps you have in a social network has been tried various ways. Appsfire hit on the idea of socialising apps. Zwapp is coming at it from a slightly different angle. Its iPhone app (iTunes link) auto-discovers what apps you have on your iPhone and connects up your contacts, Facebook and Twitter friends. You then follow people who's opinion's you respect when it comes to apps. It even has a live feed where you can see what apps your friends are using and downloading (privacy is now most definitely over it would seem). 
Onavo's Guy Rosen Plans To Disrupt Data Roaming (TCTV)
Apr 29, 10:07AM
Onavo, as we just reported, is a magical iPhone app which literally shrinks the data your phone uses and thus your roaming data bill when you are travelling. It launches today and I caught up with CEO and co-founder Guy Rosen at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam.
Onavo Is A Money-Saving, Must-Have App For EVERY iPhone Data User
Apr 29, 9:00AM
There's really no better way to describe Onavo other than a must-have app for any and every iPhone user on a data plan. I'll go a step further: I think it's the very first app one should install. Why? Because Onavo shrinks your data usage (and thus, your bills). All you need to do is install the free app and you're done. The app will then run in the background and do its thing and all you have to do is continue consuming data as you do today… Surfing the web, emailing, tweeting, using maps, etc.
Behind The Scenes: Record Label Demands From Amazon
Apr 29, 8:28AM
Amazon defied the record labels by launching an unlicensed personal cloud music service. (Disclosure: I'm CEO of competitor MP3tunes.) Music companies immediately expressed their dissatisfaction and Amazon public stated they would discuss licenses with labels. Since then considerable speculation has swirled about regarding licensing discussions Amazon, Google and Apple are having with the 4 major record labels. Dominating the discussions is the labels concern that personal cloud services will exacerbate piracy and erode their business even further. Consequently they want to impose substantial restrictions on any such service, but each labels has different concerns and demands. Below are examples of the startling limitations major labels wish to impose on such services. Universal Music Group is concerned that users will load pirated songs into lockers. Average MP3 players house more than a thousand songs and UMG believes that many were unpaid for. They do not want to see the billions of songs that came from P2P system laundered (think drug money) in a cloud service and become legitimate. 
Worldwide Mobile Phone Market Grew 20% In Q1 2011, Fueled By Smartphone Boom
Apr 29, 6:04AM
According to research firm IDC, the global mobile phone market ballooned in the first quarter of this year, growing 19.8 percent year-over-year, mostly due to the meteoric rise of smartphone shipments, especially in emerging markets. According to the firm's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 371.8 million units in Q1 2011 compared to 310.5 million units in the first quarter of 2010. IDC posits that smartphone growth worldwide, particularly in Asia/Pacific, Middle East, Africa and Latin America, helped lift the overall market to a record first-quarter high. 
Square To Beef Up Card Reader Security This Summer (And VeriFone Wasn't So Wrong, After All)
Apr 29, 3:40AM
Yesterday was a big day for hot mobile payments startup Square. The company announced that it received a strategic investment from Visa, giving the company a big stamp approval. And it also announced something that got far less attention: Square will be releasing a new card reader (the thing you plug into your phone) this summer, and it will use encryption at the read head. The news was announced with little fanfare by Square Security Lead Sam Quigley during a panel at the Visa Security Summit. But it's important for a couple of reasons. First is the fact that just last month, rival (and much larger) payments company VeriFone lobbed a heated accusation at the startup: it said that Square should recall all of its readers because they didn't encrypt credit card data, making it easy for thieves to skim the information. Square CEO Jack Dorsey battled back, stating that VeriFone's accusation that their reader was insecure was "not a fair or accurate claim and [that] it overlooks all of the protections already built into your credit card." Dorsey also outlined all the ways that credit card fraud could still be committed, regardless of encryption, and explained that users aren't responsible for fraudulent charges regardless. But now we have Square doing almost exactly what VeriFone was crying foul on. So what gives?
South Park Scares You Into Reading Apple's Terms And Conditions
Apr 29, 1:21AM
You know the drill ... You open iTunes and there's a popup that asks you to download a new version. You download the newest version and there's another popup asking you to agree to Apple's Terms of Service. But it's over 55-pages long! You scroll to the bottom and hastily click "Agree," because what's the worst that can happen right? Right? Well in South Park's out-of-control genius premiere last night (which you've probably already seen but I'll repost clips of for the three of you who haven't) creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone took iPhone Location-gate to the next level in a plot line that was a mashup of a Stevenote and the horror film "The Human Centipede." 
eBay's PayPal Buys Mobile Payments Startup Fig Card
Apr 29, 12:20AM
In its second acquisition in two weeks, eBay's PayPal unit has bought mobile payments startup FigCard. Terms of the acquisition, which was announced on the PayPal blog, were not disclosed. Boston-based Fig Card allows merchants to accept mobile payments in stores by using a simple USB device that plugs into the cash register or point-of-sale terminal. All the consumer needs is the Fig app on his or her smart phone. The connection with PayPal is that when consumers setup their payment information, they could add PayPal as a payments option. You can see the video below for a demo of Fig Card's technology
Buzz Off, Google Buzz
Apr 29, 12:12AM
Two days ago, we removed the Google Buzz button from the top and bottom of each post on TechCrunch. No one noticed. Not a single person said a word about it. It wasn't until earlier today when I tweeted about it that we got some feedback on the change (most of it being: "oh, I didn't even notice"). As I tweeted, that in and of itself says a lot. The issue of Buzz being a viable sharing platform used to be somewhat of a hot-button issue. When I wrote a post last March noting that traffic coming our way from Buzz appeared to be less than that of a dead man, FriendFeed, many folks got up in arms. It turns out, my data was flawed — but it wasn't necessarily wrong. You see, since Buzz runs within Gmail, which defaults to HTTPS, it scrubs the referrer data before sending the traffic our way. So, conveniently, the only way to measure Buzz traffic was to infer it. Like a black hole.
With A New Suite Of Games, Arkadium Lets Gamers Play Right On Their Facebook Walls
Apr 29, 12:00AM
Arkadium, the casual and social game developer, is announcing today the release of the Arkadium Stadium, a suite of 12 Flash-based games that users can post and play right from their Facebook walls. Now you don't have to deal with the hassle of playing the game in-app. I joke, but this functionality is very cool, as it allows you to quickly publish the game app to your profile, or your friends' profiles and play right there. No fuss, no muss. Arkadium Co-founder and President Jessica Rovello told me that few gaming companies have yet explored this method of "wall play", so through the Arkadium Stadium, the company hopes to begin setting the groundwork for people to be able to enjoy and share games like they would videos, photos, and links. 
On Track To Make $8 Million This Year, Refinery29 Invades San Francisco
Apr 28, 10:48PM
Fashion news site Refinery29 is on a roll. The hyperlocal fashion site is expanding to San Francisco today, its fourth city after New York, LA, and Chicago. The site covers high-end local fashion designers, and it launched a sister group deals service called Refinery29 Reserve last November. CEO Philippe von Borries tells me the company's is on track to do $8 million in revenues this year, based on the first quarter run-rate. It ended 2010 with $2 million in sales, up from %600,000 in 2009. "Our formula is to engage users with content and convert them into shoppers," he says. Still, he expects advertising to make up 75 percent of his revenues this year, and the commerce business to make up another 25 percent. The Reserve business is only in New York right now, but will soon launch in San Francisco as well. 
Why Can't Anyone Make A Popular Tablet?
Apr 28, 10:46PM
I've been thinking a lot about the popularity of tablets and the problems manufacturers face coming up against the iPad. The devices that we see here at CG are all pretty amazing - even the Playbook was a cool, if flawed, device - but no one device seems to be able to grab any traction. In looking back, I see echoes of the netbook craze of the oughts, and the parallels with this "fad" (along with the distinct differences) are very telling.
LivingTechie Is A Groupon For Techies
Apr 28, 10:12PM
Just to add more fuel to the conflict of interest fire we have raging over at TC HQ today, TechCrunch Israeli correspondent and Soluto Head of Product Roi Carthy has decided to build a startup. You'd think being a TechCrunch writer would make Carthy shy away from doing something as hackneyed as a Groupon clone, but Carthy's daily deals site has a twist! (DISCLOSURE: I, like Carthy, write for TechCrunch) 
Keen On… Robert Vamosi: When Gadgets Betray Us + Book Giveaway
Apr 28, 9:54PM
Can gadgets betray us? Is the Pope Catholic? Last week, we ran an interview with Robert Vamosi, a senior security analyst at Mocana, and the author of When Gadgets Betray Us, about the iPhone location tracking kerfuffle. But Vamosi's new book goes beyond a critique of Apple and Google. When Gadgets Betray Us is a broad warning about how the latest technology hardware – from smart meters to medical devices – is leaking our data. And Vamosi offers a broad critique of technology, even arguing that we need to redefine the concept of "hacking" in an age where both privacy and traditional notions of intellectual property are in crisis.
The Complete Guide To Watching And Tracking The Royal Wedding Online
Apr 28, 9:30PM
For any of you caught up in the frenzy over the royal wedding between England's Prince William and Kate Middleton, we've collected a comprehensive list of where to watch the festivities online, where to find photos, dedicated mobile apps, Twitter accounts following the Royal Wedding and more. As opposed to the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, this Royal Wedding is particularly unique because of the web didn't exist back then. And neither did social media. This will be one of the most publicized and watched weddings in history and thh whole world is invited to view and comment both on TV and the web. 
(Fly Or Die) Can TweetDeck's New iPhone App Survive A Twitter Acquisition
Apr 28, 9:13PM
TweetDeck's new iPhone app came out a couple days ago. It is completely redesigned from the ground up and looks more like it's Android cousin than the first TweetDeck for iPhone. Instead of cramming as much as possible into an iPhone screen, TweetDeck stripped everything out but the essentials. The result is a spare mobile stream reader that packs a lot of punch. We take a look at the new TweetDeck for IPhone in this episode of Fly or Die, along with Soundtracking, and Zapd. As usual, the CEO behind one of these products appears as a surprise guest during the show. With Twitter rumored to be negotiating a $50 million acquisition of TweetDeck to keep it out of the hands of Bill Gross' UberMedia, it is not clear whether this brand new product will survive such a deal. After all, Twitter has its own iPhone client, among others. It doesn't need two. 
It's Face Time: Google Talk For Android Phones Gets Video Chat Support
Apr 28, 8:50PM
If you're on an Android device, you may know that there are already plenty of ways to conduct video and voice calls using various third party applications (Qik, Fring, etc.). But that functionality has never been included with stock builds of Android (at least, not for phones), the way Apple's FaceTime has been integrated into iOS for the last year. Today, that's starting to change. Google is currently rolling out an update to Nexus S devices that adds voice and video chat to Google Talk, which is included as part of the core set of Google applications that come pre-installed on many Android devices. The feature will work on both Wi-Fi and 3G/4G wireless networks, and allows calls between phones, tablets, and any computer with Gmail and Google Talk enabled. The update is gradually rolling out over the air (a process that usually takes a couple weeks), and it also includes numerous bug fixes. The Nexus One will be getting an update as well, but it won't include the video chat support (it doesn't have a front-facing camera, though it would have been nice to have a voice-only feature for VoIP calls).
Microsoft Revenue Up 13% to $16.43B, Earnings At $0.61 Per Share
Apr 28, 8:27PM
Microsoft just reported its third quarter 2011 earnings today with revenues of $16.43 billion, an increase of 13% from the same period of 2010. Microsoft's operating income was $5.71 billion, its net income was $5.23 billion and its diluted earnings per share were at $0.61, a 36% increase. With this report Microsoft beat Wall Street analyst expectations which were at 56 cents per share on $16.19 billion in revenue.
The Final Shoe Drops: Apple Now More Profitable Than Microsoft Too
Apr 28, 8:24PM
Just about a year ago, when Apple passed Microsoft in market cap, the Redmond loyalists were out in full force: that means nothing — look at the revenues! When Apple passed Microsoft in revenues last October, it was: who cares — look at the profits! We were looking, and we projected that this quarter just ended would be the one in which Apple passed Microsoft in that regard too. Sure enough, they have. Easily. Microsoft has just announced their Q3 2011 results. The numbers appear to be good, beating analysts' expectations. But with net income now at $5.23 billion, Microsoft now comes in well behind Apple, which had a net income of $5.99 billion last quarter.
Accel Invests $35M. in 99designs…After Years of Trying
Apr 28, 8:00PM
Accel Partners has invested $35 million in the crowdsource design service 99designs-- a monster of a series A. Of course, 99designs is not your average early-stage startup. Born in Melbourne, Australia out of an older company called sitepoint.com, 99designs is bootstrapped, profitable and growing revenues at a rate of about 120% a year. A few strategic angel investors also participated including Michael Dearing, Stewart Butterfield, Dave Goldberg and Anthony Casalena. Accel's Andrew Braccia and Ryan Sweeney will join the board along with Dearing. The growth helps explain why Braccia has been courting this deal since 2009. And he wasn't alone. 99designs CEO Patrick Llewellyn says several VCs have been pinging the company, and until now, they've all been turned away. They all seem to find out about the company the same way: One of their portfolio companies uses the service to get a good, cheap logo.
Spotify Lands Major Studio Deals, Prepares To Launch Movie Service
Apr 28, 7:53PM
Spotify continues to negotiate with Facebook over its long promised U.S. launch. But that isn't the only thing the music streaming service has been up to. They've negotiated a number of deals with major movie studios to offer users streaming movies as well as music, a source in the industry tells us. Earlier this week we reported that YouTube plans a similar service (something we first wrote about last year). As with Google/YouTube, we're not sure when Spotify will launch the new service. But our best information suggests this Fall. And these aren't your standard Netflix/Amazon/iTunes type movie deals, either, we've heard. Spotify is aiming to offer users much earlier access to movies. Similar to the release dates that hotel's get for premium in-room movies. They're expensive, but users can often see them just a couple of weeks after they've been in theaters. 
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