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A Few Key People Really Can Make a Huge Difference
May 05, 2:15PM
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 I'm in Seattle this week. Seattle should be the envy of any non Silicon Valley tech community in the country. Great lifestyle, great cost of living, motivated people and only the crap weather on the negative side. They have had their successes; yet somehow all of the neurons don't yet seem to be firing are powerfully as they need to be. Their "patron companies" - Amazon & Microsoft - aren't yet turning into the next generation of fast-growth businesses. That's a problem. As I gear up to give a keynote at the annual Seattle 2.0 awards dinner on Thursday night I started reflected on what it would take to "change the trajectory" for Seattle or for any regional market, really. It really wouldn't take much to turn a great technology ecosystem into a truly electric one. The truth is that only a few key motivated & talented players are ever needed to make extra-ordinary change in a country, a region or a company. Nelson Mandela. Steve Jobs. Sheryl Sandberg. Brad Feld. Ron Conway. The following post looks at what recipe would be needed to take the raw ingredients of Seattle and take it to the next level. It's a recipe for your community. It's a recipe for your company. Read on ... 
Android To Surpass Apple's App Store In Size By August 2011: Report (Exclusive)
May 05, 12:15PM
There's no doubt Android Market will at some point offer more applications for download and/or purchase than Apple's App Store, as the latter's growth has been slowing down of late, while the Android application store's growth rate has been accelerating. In a recent report, app store analytics company Distimo forecasted that Android would surpass the App Store in size before the end of July 2011. Another research firm, Germany-based research2guidance, corroborates Distimo's findings; the firm forecasts Android to blow past Apple's App Store by August 2011.
LIVE From Paris: TechCrunch France presents #TCFRecipes + Livestream
May 05, 11:41AM
Oh yes, France does indeed have a tech scene. And today, TechCrunch France is hosting the first edition of #TCFRecipes in Paris, an event that will cover all the ins and outs of what's happening in the French startup world - in English - with some of France's hottest entrepreneurs and investors. The event will kick off at 2pm Paris time (GMT+1) and we're expecting a full-house of over 400 guests at the ESCP-Europe campus in Paris. For anyone who can't make it, be sure to check out the livestream below as we've got an incredible line-up of speakers, including...
CareerBuilder Expands To Southeast Asia With Purchase Of Singapore's Jobscentral
May 05, 11:20AM
Online career site operator CareerBuilder has acquired JobsCentral, one of Singapore's largest job portals with over 700,000 registered jobseekers and a growing presence in Malaysia. With the acquisition, CareerBuilder enters the Southeast Asian market, expanding operations to a total of 21 countries worldwide, including the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia.
Silicon Milkroundabout Aims To Tackle London's Startup Brain-Drain
May 05, 9:57AM
There's a neat line in the Facebook movie, The Social Network, that says something like Harvard students don't seek a job, they create a job in reference to the fact that so many graduates go on to start their own venture. And while not all computer science graduates and those from related disciplines, either fresh from University or already in work, can be expected to found their own startup, joining one is the next best thing. However it's here where the London startup community faces a particular challenge: how to compete with the brain-drain caused by the Capital city's financial sector and by other corporations who have chosen London as their European headquarters or have a major presence here, including Internet companies like Google and Microsoft. That's something that a new event called Silicon Milkroundabout hopes to help remedy.
Mobile Ad Network Jumptap Closes $25 Million Funding Round
May 05, 9:50AM
As we reported a month ago, mobile ad network JumpTap has raised a round of new funding. The company confirmed this today, announcing a $25 million financing round from AllianceBernstein, General Catalyst, Redpoint Ventures, Summerhill Ventures, Valhalla Partners and WPP, as well as several new investors, who are not being disclosed. This brings the company's funding to over $90 million. JumpTap is one of the largest remaining independent mobile advertising networks, in addition to Millennial Media, 4INFO, InMobi and others (another remaining network Greystripe was just acquired). Jumptap's data-driven technology promises highly targeted advertising and the company partners with digital and media agencies, publishers, wireless carriers and brand advertisers to serve an array of mobile advertising solutions.
Google I/O: ShortForm Curates Sandbox Startup Demo Videos Into A Single Channel
May 05, 9:34AM
Google I/O, Google's developer (cough, nerd) conference, comes to San Francisco next Tuesday for two days of peace, love, panels, and coding. Each year, the conference plays host to its so-called "Sandbox", in which developers and startups demo their apps, code, and technical delights. This year, thanks to ShortForm, a video curation community, those startup demos can all be found in one place -- on ShortForm's Google I/O channel. The San Francisco-based startup has built a cool video curation platform that allows users to create personalized channels of web video content, easily pulling clips from YouTube and other video sites. And you can play videos back-to-back to create a stream of video, not unlike the TV viewing experience. That's right. I said it. Creating custom channels is simple, and ShortForm's design and UI is more user-friendly (or at least more attractive) than that of YouTube. IMHO, of course. So, applying this formula to Google I/O: If you're unable to make the conference or, say, want to check back in on a favorite developer/app, you can kick back and get a full preview of all companies demoing at I/O in one channel. Ka-bam! 
Google Calls Out Rivals' Web Benchmark Tools, Rebuilds Them To Better Gauge Chrome
May 05, 7:49AM
When it comes to Chrome, Google has long been addicted to speed. And for many tasks on the web today, that speed is related to how fast your JavaScript engine is. Google has long held that their's is the fastest. But it's hard to know for sure because there are a few different benchmark suites to test such speeds — and the most popular ones are made by companies with stakes in the game: Apple, Mozilla, and yes, Google. In a post yesterday on their Chromium, it's pretty clear that Google feels their V8 benchmark suite is the best. In fact, they directly call our their rivals' suites, noting bugs and saying that they must evolve. And then they go one step further: providing links to versions of the rivals' suites supposedly perfected by Google!
Walking With Robots: A Look Inside Exciting New Technology From Berkeley Bionics (TCTV)
May 05, 5:36AM
It's not everyday that one has an encounter with a robot, let alone has the chance to wear one, and recently, I was lucky enough to have just that. Thanks to Berkeley Bionics, I got to take a peak into the future of bionic devices -- and get a small taste of what it must feel like to be Anthony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man). The Berkeley-based startup is developing exciting new technology that is truly the stuff of comic books and, formerly, of science fiction. Specifically, the company is making wearable, artificially intelligent bionic devices that it calls "exoskeletons". This has taken shape in two significant forms: eLEGS and HULC. Both of which you can see (as well as an interview with Berkeley Bionics CEO Eythor Bender) in the accompanying video.
Google Voice CEO Craig Walker Launches Firespotter, A Google Ventures Funded Incubator
May 05, 3:59AM
When Google Voice (previously GrandCentral) cofounder and CEO Craig Walker left Google last year, he didn't go far. In fact, he just went across the street to set up a desk at Google Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence. At the time he told me his goal was to start a new company. Now, he tells me, he wants to start lots of them. He and his team (former Google Voice engineers Brian Peterson and John Rector, and Alex Cornell) are launching Firespotter Labs today, an incubator for new startups. The company has also taken an initial $3 million round of funding from Google Ventures (keepin it in the family!). Wesley Chan joins Firespotter's board of directors.
IAC's CityGrid Media Buys Social Media Monitoring And Analysis Platform BuzzLabs
May 05, 3:55AM
Social media monitoring platforms are undoubtedly one of the more desirable acquisition targets for both technology, e-commerce and media companies. Salesforce picked up Radian6 a few weeks ago for $326 million and Walmart bought Kosmix as well. And today IAC-owned local media and advertising property CityGrid Media is acquiring its own social media monitoring and sentiment analysis platform, BuzzLabs. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Seattle-based BuzzLabs, which was co-founded in 2009 by former Microsoft employees Philip Lee and Dou Shen, allows publishers to leverage social content, keeps consumers better informed, and helps local businesses monitor their presence across the web. BuzzLabs' dashboard for businesses dashboard aggregates social media activity into one location, allowing companies to track mentions, Tweets, reviews and more across the web. 
Google Just Leaked Their +1 Chrome Extension On National Television
May 05, 1:03AM
If you haven't seen Google's new "Dear Sophie" video, I highly recommend you check it out. It's brilliant. And watch closely. At various points in the video, the Chrome browser in use reveals an unreleased product: a Google +1 extension. For the best view of it, skip to the 0:51 mark. There it is, front and center, next to the Picasa button being clicked on.
100,000 Developers Strong, Mashery Nabs $11 Million To Push The Internet Beyond Websites
May 05, 12:10AM
"People used to sit at a desk to 'Internet'. Then they would get up and stop Internetting. Now they Internet wherever, whenever — even when they don't think they are doing it." That's Mashery CEO Oren Michels' explanation for why his company is growing so quickly. The API management company has just hit 100,000 developers using their service, Michels says. Just about a year ago, that number stood at 35,000. And now they've just gotten a big new round of funding to help deal with and maintain that fast expansion.
Talkatone Lets You Make Calls And SMS Over Wifi For Free, No Strings Attached
May 04, 11:47PM
Like Pinger, Talkatone lets you make phone calls using Wifi. Unlike Pinger, Talkatone uses Google Voice as a channel to let you make and receive phone calls to and from your phone contacts, for free. While Pinger, using Textfree with voice, gives you a certain amount of minutes free and then charges your iTunes account, Talkatone, after some jiggering of your Google Voice account, allows you to make unlimited calls without having to jump through any additional hoops. To set Talktone up log into your Gmail account and select the "Call Phone" option under Chat. Use the "Call Phone" option to make one call to a regular phone number. Then sign out from Google Chat. Return to Talkatone make a phone call from its phone widget and you should be good to go there.
TC Cribs: The Sights And Smells Of LikeALittle's Ridiculous Hacker House
May 04, 11:08PM
Warning: if you are an obsessively clean person, you may want to skip this episode of TC Cribs. For those of you brave enough to tune in, here's a bit of an explanation. Over the last few months we've seen some pretty blinged-out offices, featuring go-karts, gorgeous skyline views, and endless supplies of free snacks and beer. But the reality is that most startups don't look anything like that. Instead, they often consist a handful of founders working (and sleeping) out of somebody's apartment and eating ramen noodles twice a day with the occasional pizza splurge. LikeALittle (LAL) is a lot like that. There's stuff everywhere. Not necessarily gross stuff, but the floor was littered with dolls, photos of Ashton Kutcher, iPads, markers, venture capitalist business cards, and popcorn. In other words, it was a lot like my college dorm. And it's awesome. 
iPhone Location Update: All Users In 1 Week; Android 2.3 Update: 4% Of Users In 5 Months
May 04, 9:56PM
Earlier today, Apple released the iOS update that resolves the location tracking issues that had the press in a tizzy over for the past couple of weeks. For those keeping score at home, it took Apple exactly one week from when they first addressed the problem to ship a solution to every affected iOS user. Yes, just one week later, the situation is resolved (well, aside from a smaller encryption issue which will be fixed in the next major iOS update). Regardless of your stance on the issue at hand, that turnaround time is impressive anyway you slice it. And it's especially impressive when you consider the alternative. The Android alternative. 
Contest: Away Put Your Weapon, I Mean You To Win A Star Wars Prize
May 04, 8:59PM
It is May 4th aka Force Day. On this day we must celebrate the cultural phenomenon that is Star Wars. How better to do that than by picking one item from a huge list of Star Wars stuff and having it sent to your home. Your mission, then, is to choose one item and I will pick one winner at random and that winner will receive the item he or she chose. The result? He or she will, as Han Solo once said, "live long and prosper."
MerchantCircle Debuts iPhone App For Small Businesses To Manage Marketing
May 04, 8:57PM
Online marketing network for small business owners MerchantCircle is launching an iPhone app today that allows small businesses to manage and update their listings on the site and other social media pages, upload photos, answer new customer inquiries and stay on top of their reviews on the go. Merchant Circle provides a business directory for merchants in smaller towns and currently lists over a million small businesses. MerchantCircle has long targeted merchants in small locales versus catering towards the consumers, as sites like Yelp and CitySearch do. MerchantCircle has local business members in 95% of the 24,600 U.S. cities and towns with populations over 200.
Facebook Like Aggregator Likester Tracks What's Hot On Facebook
May 04, 8:25PM
With hundreds of thousands of websites integrating with Facebook Likes and 250 million people engaging with Likes just a little after a year after the Like button made its first appearance at F8, the space of Facebook Likes aggregation is about to get competitive. Facebook search engine Booshaka just released their own Facebook Likes categorization yesterday, for example. Likester just overhauled its platform, wanting to become the go-to Facebook Likes aggregator 
Howard Lindzon, Yossi Vardi, Greg Tseng, and Bradley Horowitz All Ready To Disrupt In NYC
May 04, 7:42PM
TechCrunch Disrupt NYC starts May 23rd—less than a month away. And we are very excited to announce four more guests to our growing list of speakers who will be joining us at this year's Disrupt in NYC: Howard Lindzon, Yossi Vardi, Greg Tseng, and Bradley Horowitz. Howard Lindzon, co-founder and CEO of StockTwits, is a force to be reckoned with. With over twenty years experience in the financial community actingas both an entrepreneur and investor (his sold his last startup, Wallstrip, to CBS), has incredible insight into new media and is also a very active angel investor in the financial and internet business sectors. Yossi Vardi is an award winning Israeli investor, most famous for being the original investor in ICQ. Currently co-founder and board observer of WeFi, Vardi has invested in over 50 tech companies and has acted as an advisor to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program on issues of energy in the developing world.
Intel's 3D Transistors Promise Small Physical And Electrical Footprint
May 04, 7:30PM
Intel has made an interesting advance in microprocessor technology after years of research, and it seems that 2011's processors will be the first to feature 3D transistors and tri-gate technology. By optimizing the shape of the transistor at a nanometer level, Intel has made it possible to both reduce the size of individual transistors and improve their efficiency. Now, it's important to differentiate this 3D method from others under investigation, like IBM's. This isn't a multi-layer solution, merely a more complicated shape for the single layer of transistors we know and love. I say merely, but of course sculpting things at a near-atomic level is no joke. So what exactly is the advance here, and what will it enable?
Socialcam's 'Instagram for Video' Is Now On The Web, Too
May 04, 7:15PM
Socialcam, the video sharing app that was created by Justin.tv, is quickly fleshing out its feature set. The app — which is a lot like an 'Instagram for video', minus the effects filters — launched just in time for SXSW and had 250,000 downloads in its first month (the total download number is significantly higher than that, though they aren't releasing figures until they reach their next 'big' milestone). A few weeks ago the company launched a 2.0 release that streamlined the video upload process, and today it's adding another key feature: a web version of Socialcam. Now, in a sense Socialcam has had a website since it launched — every time you shared a Socialcam video via email or Twitter, you sent out a link to a landing page with your video embedded. You could retweet or share that page on Facebook, but that was it. There weren't profile pages, so you couldn't browse through the other videos your friends had recorded, and you couldn't see who was tagged in each video (one of Socialcam's features is a quick way to tag your friends in clips).
Uber CEO On His "Official" NYC Launch: "Congestion Is A Bitch" (Video And Heatmaps)
May 04, 5:05PM
About a month ago, I was one of the very first people to ride an Uber car in New York City a few hours after the company put a few test cars out on the streets. It was supposed to be a secret, but I found out about it, and texted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick while I was in the car. Last night was Uber's "official" launch in New York City with about 100 cars which can be summoned via an iPhone app. Kalanick spent some of his recently raised $11 million to host a fancy dinner at Del Posto. I talked to Kalanick about the launch (watch the video below), and during the dinner he showed everyone some incredible slides depicting heat maps of San Francisco (where Uber is fully launched) and New York City. These slides really drive home how Uber is using data to gain a competitive advantage, gauge demand, and get its model right. The map at right shows all the places in New York City where the Uber app was opened even before the service was available. (I guess I wasn't the only one waiting for it—Boston, Chicago, D.C., and Seattle are next).
With A New API, Aviary Wants To Become The Twilio Of Photo Effects (Video)
May 04, 3:57PM
Mobile apps like Instagram and PicPlz made photo filters popular, and now every photo app needs to have filters and effects. But not every developer wants to spend the time and resources to come up with his own effects. Online image-editing service Aviary hopes to fill that need with a new photo effects API it is launching today. Alex Taub, head of business development for Aviary, took me through a demo of the new APIs and what they can do in the video above. Developers can choose from a variety of effects and filters—everything from red-eye reduction to "Bad Ass" (which makes photos look like Andy Warhol prints). There are also effects like Toy Camera, black and white, or adding a logo. watermark. Aviary hopes to become the Twilio of photo effects for developers (much like Twilio gave rise to apps like GroupMe through its SMS and telephony APIs). 
Datran Media Acquires Citizen Journalism Platform Allvoices
May 04, 3:47PM
Exclusive: Digital Marketing company Datran Media has acquired Allvoices, a fast-growing citizen journalism platform. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by the companies but we hear the acquisition was a mixture of cash and stock. Allvoices, which has raised $9 million in funding and launched in 2008, is the brainchild of former VC Amra Tareen. The site allows anyone to contribute blog posts, images, videos and other observations, on local and global news.
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