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Why China Matters To Apple, Others: This Year It Will Become The World's Largest Smartphone Market
Mar 15, 10:52AM
China is already a significant market for companies like Apple, with CEO Tim Cook describing "staggering" and "off the charts" sales of the iPhone in China last quarter. But according to IDC the opportunity is just beginning for Apple and others working in the smartphone world: China is set to become the world's largest smartphone market this year, overtaking the U.S., which has led in years past. IDC says this is part of a larger trend of emerging countries getting up to speed with developed nations: by 2016, China will be joined by Brazil and India in the top-five countries in terms of smartphone shipments. Countries like the U.S., U.K. and Japan will continue to see growth, but not at the rate of these other, more populated countries.SEO Service BrightEdge Raises $12.6M
Mar 15, 10:05AM
BrightEdge, a startup that offers tools for large companies to manage their search engine rankings, has raised $12.6 million in a Series C round of funding. The round was led by new investor Intel Capital, with participation from existing backers Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures, and Illuminate Ventures. CEO Jim Yu says that brings BrightEdge's total funding to a little more than $21 million, of which it has only spent $3 million.Flip To Hand Over Sharing Platform Flipshare To Givit, Users Have 30 Days To Transfer Content
Mar 15, 10:00AM
The writing was on the wall for Flip, but when Cisco decided to shutter its rather popular Flip video camera business in April 2011, the company promised a smooth transition for existing users. That said, Givit video sharing service will be integrating with Flipshare, Flip's online video sharing platform, to store the content that will soon be permanently deleted from Flipshare.RadVision Finally Finds A Home With Telecom Giant Avaya — For $230 Million
Mar 15, 9:47AM
Back in December, we reported that Israeli-headquartered video-conferencing specialist, RadVision, was in advanced acquisition talks with global collaboration and communications giant, Avaya. While those talks have taken awhile to unfold, today Avaya officially inked the deal, agreeing to an acquisition of RadVision in which shareholders will receive $11.85 per share -- a deal worth some $230 million. The acquisition is subject to approval by RadVision shareholders, but the companies said they expect the deal to be final within 90 days.Report: Cisco Looking To Buy Interactive TV And Security Specialist NDS In $5B Deal
Mar 15, 9:34AM
Yesterday I wrote about how Israel is trying to promote itself as the next hotbed of consumer and Internet startups, moving beyond its traditional roots in "hard" technology. But today comes news of a deal that is firmly about its existing might in the latter category: Cisco is reported to be eyeing up the purchase of interactive TV and security specialist NDS, founded in Israel in 1988, for a sum believed to be in the region of $5 billion. According to the Israeli financial daily the Calcalist (translation here), the deal is expected to close in the coming days. NDS is 51 percent owned by Premira, and 49 percent owned by media giant News Corp.Misleading Investors About Private Stock Sales Will Get You In Trouble, Registering With The Feds Won't
Mar 15, 9:00AM
Employees of hot web companies like Facebook have been selling shares to private investors for years, and a few firms have jumped in to take advantage of the situation. So naturally the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken an interest, too. After a lengthy investigation into the budding industry -- and ahead of a big Facebook initial public offering -- it's going after two stealthy financial groups as well as popular private market SharesPost."Winning" SXSW Has Yet To Produce A Winning Business
Mar 15, 8:30AM
It's pretty easy to write yet another post about who "won" SXSW or, if you're feeling ornery or ambitious, how there are no longer any breakout stars. But there's an important point lost in this repetitive debate. SXSW is good at producing cultural phenomena -- think apps that take off among a critical mass of digerati, who then fly home and spread these products to other parts of the country or world. But the conference doesn't have a track record yet for producing sustainable consumer Internet businesses. If previous SXSW "winners" Twitter or Foursquare had the revenue growth and the smidge of net income that's helpful for debuting on public markets, they might have been in the wave of companies that filed for an IPO in the past year.General Atlantic And Sequoia Put $60M In Enterprise Cloud Consultancy Appirio
Mar 15, 6:59AM
Cloud solution provider and consultancy Appirio is announcing $60 million in new funding led by private equity firm General Atlantic, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital and GGV Capital. This brings Appirio's total investment to over $70 million. Previous investors include Salesforce. Appirio works with organizations such as Facebook, NYU, Thomson Reuters and Home Depot to adopt, build, and manage public cloud applications and platforms like Salesforce.com, Google and Workday. The company has moved over 1.5 million people to the cloud since its inception.Groupon Hires Curtis Lee Away From Zynga To Become Its New VP Of Consumer Products
Mar 15, 6:55AM
Another executive departure at Zynga, and a big hire for Groupon: TechCrunch has learned -- and Groupon has just confirmed -- that Curtis Lee, who had been director of product management for Zynga, is joining Groupon as its new VP of consumer products, to oversee everything consumer-facing on the product side for the daily deals giant. This is a significant talent loss for Zynga, and comes on the heels of two other exec departures: ad chief Manny Anekal earlier this month, and lead designer Michael McCormick in February. Lee, meanwhile, was known as something of a "monetization guru" for Zynga, laying the blueprint Zynga's virtual goods and currency sales. Among his past roles at Zynga, Lee had been head of product for Zynga's Austin studio, and had been director of product for one of its biggest hits, Mafia Wars. Significantly, a source says that he had been working on a "huge, unannounced project" with Mark Skaggs, the man who created Farmville and Cityville.The New Apple TV Will Finish What The Mac Started: Killing Off Discs
Mar 15, 3:32AM
I remember watching the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray wars closely a few years back. I wanted one to win so I could go out and buy a next generation movie player. But the battle went on and on, and by the time Blu-ray won, I had set my sights on a new frontier: digital distribution. I never did get that Blu-ray player. And now I'm quite certain I never will. The new 1080p Apple TV is here. To be clear, because of the way it's compressed, iTunes 1080p content is not equal to the 1080p picture you'll get from a Blu-ray disc. It's very close, but it's not quite there yet. I imagine it will get there as digital compression technology continues to improve. But even if it doesn't, this is something that won't mean a thing to the vast majority of consumers. Thanks to the marketing of television sets over the years, they know "1080p". They don't know that the quality can be inconstant. Fair or not, it won't matter.Trey Ratcliff On The Rise Of Social Photography [TCTV]
Mar 15, 3:30AM
Trey Ratcliff, the travel photographer known for popularizing HDR (high dynamic range) photo techniques online through his very popular Stuck In Customs blog and more recently his own apps and Google+ page, hosted a photowalk in his hometown of Austin, Texas this week during the South By Southwest Interactive conference. Watch him talk to TechCrunch TV about his one piece of advice for casual photographers, why online social networks have been so good for photos, how his newest app Stuck On Earth is taking off, and his next big travel destination.The New iPad Makes Apple's Tablet Domination Clearer Than Ever
Mar 15, 1:00AM
Even if you have perfect vision, indulge me here for a second. You know when you go in for an eye exam and you're asked to look at a combination of letters and numbers on a chart against a far wall? You read the first few lines, then realize you actually can't go any further. Then you get prescribed glasses (or contacts) and you can all of a sudden read every letter and number. And even the ones you could read before are now so much clearer. That's what it's like looking at the new iPad versus the older iPads. It's weird because I was never one of those people who thought the original iPad's and the iPad 2's screen was poor (but there were plenty of those people in the post-iPhone Retina world). I guess it's just like a pre-glasses world — you never realize how blurry things are because that's just how you've always seen everything. And then you put the glasses on and you wonder how you ever managed without them. Once you see and use the new iPad, there will be no going back.How The Karma App Makes Gift-Giving Slick And Social [TCTV]
Mar 15, 12:00AM
Karma, the gift-giving app made by the founders of TapJoy, made its official debut just two weeks ago. But with $5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and others, Karma has clearly caught the attention of some important people. So we caught up with co-founder and CEO Lee Linden this week to get a demo and see what all the hype is about.Kickstart Your Own SXSW: Hear It Local Lets You Crowdfund Private Concerts
Mar 14, 10:41PM
Looking for a band for your tech conference, wedding, or launch party? San Francisco startup Hear It Local has just launched a private concert booking and crowdfunding platform that connects you to local musicians, just in time to catch the attention of the music crowd at South By Southwest. Smaller venues can also use Hear It Local to fill their calendars with great affordable bands. Unique experiences are rising in value thanks to mobile devices and social networks that make it easy to share our attendance. As both individuals and big brands throw more events, and services like EventBrite make them easier to mange, Hear It Local could grow by bridging the divide between promoters and talent.Archos Teases G10 XS Tablet With Ultra-Thin Steel Chassis
Mar 14, 10:05PM
Veteran tablet maker Archos has released a teaser video of a new tablet they're going to be releasing (we presume) later this year. It's called the G10 XS (the latest in a series of G tablets) and it has a few differentiating features that may call your name. As others have noted, the only way for Android tablets to set themselves apart from one another is in design and specs. Archos has found one more that seems to have been mostly neglected: material. Ubergizmo reports that the shell of the G10 series will be made of "paper-thin" steel. Perhaps that's how they managed to get the thing down to an impressive 7.6mm thick.Tout's Plans For Turning Video Status Updates Into A Business
Mar 14, 9:03PM
Since launching about a year ago, Tout has been used by celebrities like Shaquille O'Neal and Survivor host Jeff Probst to post short video status updates. Now co-founder and CEO Michael Downing is sharing some details about how the company has grown and where it goes from here. The Tout concept is pretty straightforward — users post video messages of up to 15 seconds. People who follow you and see the message can then reply with their own 15-second videos. Past attempts at video social networking have failed, but celebrities and brands are embracing Tout as a way to engage more meaningfully with their fans. After all, reading 140-character text updates from Shaq (who announced his retirement on Tout) is nice, but it's not the same as actually seeing and hearing him.500Friends Raises $4.5M Series A For Its Social Loyalty Platform
Mar 14, 9:00PM
500Friends, the social loyalty solution for e-commerce retailers, is announcing it has completed a $4.5 million Series A round led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from Intel Capital as well as company CEO (and angel investor) Justin Yoshimura. Founded in 2010, and launched in summer 2011, YC-backed 500Friends' LoyaltyPlus service allows merchants to reward their loyal customers who are tweeting about their purchases, posting to Facebook, referring friends, writing reviews, signing up for rewards programs, and more, all through a white label offering that can be integrated onto the retailer's own site, on either web or mobile.Verizon Could Be Biting Off More Than They Chew With Their LTE Plans
Mar 14, 8:50PM
There's been more than a little bit of Verizon news making the rounds today, and on the surface, it all seems like good stuff. Verizon will cover 200 more markets with LTE by the end of the year? Awesome! The next iPhone Verizon carries will probably have LTE? Not exactly a huge leap there, considering a LTE-packing iPad will hit Verizon shelves this Friday, but what the hell — I'm in. But let's take a step back for a second: how well will their network hold up under that kind of strain? Verizon wants to double the size of their LTE network by the end of the year, and in all likelihood will have a huge LTE flagship device in the form of the new iPhone. I don't doubt for a second that Verizon will make good on their plans to expand their LTE network by leaps and bounds, but the carrier's recent LTE hiccups don't fill me with much confidence.Ray Kurzweil: "You Are What You Think" [TCTV]
Mar 14, 8:49PM
Here is the second half of our two-part interview with legendary inventor and thought leader Ray Kurzweil (you can see part one here.) Here, Kurzweil discusses why sleep is so important for technological innovation (but it's OK to party and program all night once in a while), why facts are better off on Wikipedia than being drilled into students' brains, the latest bit of research with which he's recently become fascinated, and why you are what you think.Austin City Limits Brings Its Concert Archive To The iPad
Mar 14, 8:05PM
As South by Southwest Interactive is ending and the music festival is begins, there's a new app offering a fans a chance to explore Austin's musical history. The app is called ACL Archive, and it comes from Austin City Limits, the public television show that first started in 1976 to showcase live performances. I was actually a fan of the show when I was a teenager — or, as I told general manager Tom Gimbel, back when I had a television. Gimbel says that's exactly why this is an important effort for ACL, as program tries to adapt to changing viewing habits.If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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