Hi there!
Here's the latest feed from TechCrunch.
Add feeds@feed2email.net to your contact list to make sure you receive all your emails
Make sure to visit feed2email.net to get more feeds sent to your inbox.
To find out which feeds you are subscribed to, or to get further help, just reply to this email.
Semantic Recipe Search Engine Yummly Raises $6M From Unilever And Others
Mar 21, 11:30AM
Yummly, a semantic recipe search engine, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Physic Ventures and Unilever Corporate Ventures, the venture capital arm of food giant Unilever, with contributions from returning investors Harrison Metal Capital and the Harvard Commons Press, among others. Yummly aggregates over hundreds of thousands of recipes from around the web and allows you to filter results by type of food, course, and ingredient and break down recipes by diet, allergy, nutrition, price, cuisine, time, taste, and sources.Dell Relaunches Software Community AppDeploy As Social Q&A Platform For IT Professionals, ITNinja
Mar 21, 11:00AM
Dell has been operating IT community AppDeploy since it acquired the platform's owner Kace Networks in 2010. The site itself has been operating for 13 years, and receives around 450,000 monthly visitors per month says Dell, but growth has stalled. And Dell hadn't invested much into the site. Today, the company is completely revamping AppDeploy and relaunching the community as ITNinja, a more social, Q&A-focused product-agnostic resource for front line IT administrators. AppDeploy.com, which was the brainchild of Bob Kelly, was previously a forum-focused community knowledge base that was updated by IT professionals around how to deploy and automate software applications. While the community will continue to revolve around the sharing information and answers around critical IT decisions and support, the new site ITNinja is focuses more on engagement, reputation and social interactions.Cisco, Benchmark And Venrock Back Cloud Storage Company CTERA Networks
Mar 21, 11:00AM
CTERA Networks, a company that provides managed cloud-based storage and data protection for SMBs, has raised an undisclosed round of funding led by Venrock, with a strategic investment from Cisco Systems and participation of existing investor Benchmark Capital. Venrock partner Ray Rothrock will join CTERA's board of directors. CTERA Networks helps bridge the gap between cloud and local storage for small to medium-sized businesses as well as large companies. The company provides solutions to cloud service providers to better serve customers, allowing them to provide cloud-based data protection and other services. Service providers and enterprises use CTERA to deliver services such as backup, cloud on-ramping, file sharing, folder synchronization, and mobile access based on the storage infrastructure of their choice.As Developers Seek More Interactivity, PubNub Raises $4.5M For Its In-App Messaging Solution
Mar 21, 10:46AM
With the world of apps no longer in its early days, we are starting to see the emergence of a lot more services that give developers more sophisticated ways of interacting with users, and monetizing what they create. One of the more popular has been the rise of real-time messaging within apps; and today, one player in that space, PubNub, has picked up $4.5 million in funding to expand that line of business even further. The Series A round was led by mobile-specialist VC Relay Ventures, itself just launched today as the rebranded, $150-million fund formerly known as ATP Capital (the firm that runs JLA Ventures, Clairmont Capital, and BlackBerry Partners Fund. There was also participation from TiE Angels. PubNub, which was founded in August 2010, has seen more recently a surge in activity on its platform, which provides push-based, real-time messaging both for mobile apps as well as online -- either from a publisher to many subscribers, or from subscribers to each other (acting as the 'publishers' in the S and P diagram above).BlackBerry Partners Fund Manager ATP Rebrands As Relay Ventures, Raises $150M
Mar 21, 10:02AM
ATP Capital, the firm that runs JLA Ventures, Clairmont Capital, and BlackBerry Partners Fund, is ready to start investing a new $150 million fund — and it will be doing so under a new name, Relay Ventures. Technically, the new fund will be called the BlackBerry Partners Fund 2, but it sounds like the firm will be deemphasizing the individual funds in favor of the larger Relay Ventures brand. Just looking at all the names listed in the paragraph above should give some sense of Relay's previously fragmented identity. The BlackBerry fund is particularly confusing, since it's not a BlackBerry-exclusive fund, nor is it the official venture arm of BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion. (However, RIM is a limited partner in both the initial BlackBerry fund and the new one.)Index Launches Its First Life Sciences Fund: $200M And Partnering With Glaxo and Johnson & Johnson
Mar 21, 6:57AM
Index Ventures may be best known on these pages for its technology investments, but today it launched a new fund that points to how the company is willing to put its money into other examples of strong innovation. The life sciences fund will see Index put in $100 million of its own capital, and have it matched by $50 million each from big pharma leaders GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson. Much like the new $400 million fund from Iris Capital, Orange and Publicis, this fund is all about bringing in major players into an environment where they can make more investments into the technologies and services that could well be the future of their industries, but have possibly been too difficult to track and engage with up to now. This time around, the focus is not tech per se, but promising, early-stage R&D innovation in health.The Top Tech News (and Parties) From SXSW Music
Mar 21, 5:29AM
As tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs nursed their hangovers and headed home after SXSW Interactive, there were still newsworthy launches, panels, and campaigns going on at SXSW Music. MOG hinted at its future revenue streams, Sean Parker predicted the fall of iTunes, and products launched from Rap Genius, Monstro, and others. The second half of SXSW is much more about concerts than startups, but it's the only place to see next year's buzz bands while making business connections. Luckily for those who missed it, or slept through the business hours, I survived the 11-day marathon of the two conferences back-to-back to bring you this breakdown of what the tech world needs to know about SXSW Music.Adobe Expands Its Social Analytics Lineup With Adobe Social
Mar 21, 4:00AM
Must be something in the air. Less than a day after Google announced that it's adding social media reports to Google Analytics, Adobe is unveiling its own social analytics tools. Even though the company is best known for design software like Photoshop and development technologies like Flash, Adobe also pitches itself as a digital marketing company — a point that the company emphasized in its most recent earnings announcement. This week Adobe is hosting its Digital Marketing Summit in Salt Lake City (near the headquarters of Adobe-acquired analytics company Omniture), where it's announcing the new product, called Adobe Social.Consumer Reports Recommends New iPad As Your Next Home Grill
Mar 21, 1:59AM
Attention George Foreman: report to an Apple Store near you immediately. There's a hot (literally) product, you simply must buy the entire inventory of to keep your grilling empire alive: the new iPad. Or at least, that's what the latest nonsense from Consumer Reports would have you believe. We've seen this ridiculousness from Consumer Reports before. In June 2010, at the height of "Antennagate", Consumer Reports figured out the art of click-bait. If you say something outlandish, even if it directly contradicts something you previously said (and sometimes that's even better!), you must harp on a story to keep those precious pageviews flowing in. And so harp they did.How to Fix Location-Based People Discovery
Mar 21, 12:21AM
No clear winner came out of South by Southwest's battle of people discovery apps. Highlight seems to have received the best press, and according to Scoble, about 5% of SXSW used the service. Despite this buzz, the consensus was that all of these services fell short of expectations. Why did these apps fail? And what should we as an industry be focusing on? Here are some ideas:Airbnb Acquires UK-based Crashpadder As Part Of International Growth Push
Mar 21, 12:16AM
Airbnb has acquired Crashpadder, a London-based company that runs an online marketplace where people can list their homes and apartments to be rented out for short stays (essentially, it was like a smaller Airbnb.) Financial terms of the deal haven't been disclosed. Visitors to Crashpadder's website are automatically directed to a landing page about the Airbnb deal, which will affect Crashpadder users immediately. A message signed by Crashpadder co-founders Stephen Rapoport and Dan Hill reads in part: "As part of the transition, we will automatically move your Crashpadder account to Airbnb. All of your account and listing information will be preserved. For security reasons, you will need to set a new Airbnb password upon moving your account. Simply click below to learn more and get started."Eventbrite's New iPad Credit Card Reader Allows Event Organizers To Collect Ticket Payments At The Door
Mar 20, 10:59PM
Online ticketing platform Eventbrite is making a big push towards reaching $1 billion in gross ticket sales in 2012; after doubling both the number of events on platform in 2011 (458,207 events in 2011) and tickets sold last year (20,798,509 tickets sold in 2011). In 2011, the company sold $400 million worth of tickets, which is double the $207 million it did in 2010. To reach that $1 billion and expand sales, last year Eventbrite debuted the beginnings of the new Eventbrite Box Office. Traditionally, Eventbrite tickets are sold online, which means that people who decide to spontaneously show up at the door can't use the platform. In December, the company launched the Eventbrite 'At the Door' iPad app, and today the company is debuting the complimentary credit card reader to allow event organizers to collect ticket payments on the go. Called the 'At The Door Card Reader,' the lightweight, plastic device is just under two inches long and fits into the iPad's dock connector port to allow users to swipe credit cards. The device, which is the company's first piece of proprietary hardware, is orange and rectangular.Pinterest Copyright Issues Could Spur Changes To Terms Of Use And 'Pin Etiquette'
Mar 20, 10:47PM
Pinterest has had trouble brewing for a while over what some people say are frequent copyright violations that happen when users 'pin' photos on the site without permission from the photo's owner. But as one photographer/lawyer/Pinterest user recently discovered, the copyright problem at Pinterest is even more complicated than that. Kirsten Kowalski blew the whistle on this conflict in a blog post that went viral late last month that prompted a phone call from Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann. As Kowalski explains in the interview embedded above, Pinterest's community standards, or "Pin Etiquette," explicitly discourages users from self-promoting by "pinning" photos they have taken themselves. But at the same time, Pinterest's Terms of Use actually forbids users from pinning any photo that does not belong to him or her, and states that users are subject to any legal action that is taken from the copyright or trademark holder. Once she discovered this, she promptly deleted all her Pinterest boards that contained photos taken by anyone other than herself -- the risk of potential litigation was all too real.Sprint And HTC Announce "Collaboration Event" In NYC On April 4th
Mar 20, 10:00PM
Oh you guuuuys. Rather than just call it what it is (a press conference) Sprint and HTC have just sent out invitations to what they're calling a "collaboration event" taking place in New York City on April 4. The invitation (as always) is delightfully vague, leaving the rest of us to speculate endlessly in the days leading up to the event. If the ever-churning rumor mill is to be believed though, this little confab could feature an official announcement of a Sprint-bound HTC One X, the handful of a device that wowed the tech press at this year's Mobile World Congress.New iPad's A5X Processor Holds Few Surprises Despite Enormous Size
Mar 20, 9:49PM
Initial teardowns of the new iPad whetted many a chip nerd's appetite when they revealed that the A5X chip inside was truly gigantic. At nearly 13x13mm, it is significantly larger than the A5, which was itself already kind of a hefty bugger. Now some clear images (from Chipworks) have been taken of the die itself (some rather rough ones with initial "floorplans" showed up earlier over the weekend) and it's becoming more and more clear that the A5X is a stopgap measure: a last-generation product that's overcompensating, if you will, with a jumbo-sized GPU.After Ditching Auctions, Mobile Marketplace EggDrop Hits Half A Million Downloads
Mar 20, 8:22PM
EggDrop, essentially a mobile app alternative to Craigslist, is starting to pick up steam. The company now boasts half a million downloads of its app on iOS and Android, with $8 million in listings from across the 50 U.S. states and the U.K. (EggDrop's top two markets). The app originally launched last June, backed by $1 million in funding in a round led by BlueRun Ventures and SV Angel. But that first experience doesn't look much like EggDrop today. In November, the company rolled out a major update (ver. 2.0) which completely replaced the auction format found in the original with more traditional marketplace-style listings. Since then, over 5,000 items have been sold within the app, including electronics, games, furniture, and even grand pianos and wedding dresses.GoldSpot Shows You Mobile Video Ads If You're On Wi-Fi Via New Bandwidth-Aware Ad Tech
Mar 20, 7:04PM
Exclusive: Goldspot Media has just unveiled its new "bandwidth-based ads", a licensable technology that lets advertisers deliver a single mobile ad unit that appears as a simple rotating banner to viewers on 3G or mobile data, but as an auto-playing partial screen overlay video to viewers on wi-fi. Debuted on a new Zyrtec pharmecuetical campaign, you can compare the formats for yourself by turning wi-fi on or off. Goldspot's tech could drastically increase the number of video impression an advertiser gets per dollar. This translates into improved campaign effectiveness and ROI, while preventing a viewer's limited mobile data plan from being devoured by ads. Bandwidth-based ads will accelerate the metamorphosis of commercials into content by allowing interactive rich-media or even games to be served as mobile ads.Skimlinks Releases Full API For Web Publishers
Mar 20, 6:28PM
Skimlinks, a content monetization platform for web publishers, has released a comprehensive API suite. Part of this allows publishers to learn more about their users' shopping habits. The startup made the news recently when it was briefly used by hot startup Pinterest to monetize its outgoing links - although that arrangement foundered after it attracted controversy.Facebook Patents Developing: A Lawsuit From Mitel; More Patent Applications From AOL, Others
Mar 20, 6:13PM
For those who may have thought that last week's patent lawsuit filed by Yahoo against Facebook was a one-off, here are some developments that indicate that we may be seeing more of this to come: Facebook has now been sued by Mitel, an Ottawa, Canada-based enterprise IT company; and there is emerging evidence of others, including AOL, filing fresh patent applications to cover ever more aspects of social media services.FreedomPop's New iPhone Case Promises Users Free Wireless Data
Mar 20, 6:09PM
Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom's new FreedomPop project was initially shrouded in secrecy, but they've recently become a bit more talkative about how the company plans to offer "free wireless broadband" to their customers. FreedomPop VP of Marketing Tony Miller spilled the beans about the company's WiMax-based freemium wireless data service to Forbes, but left yet another question unanswered — what's the "innovative" new wireless device they've got in the works? Well, according to a high-level source inside FreedomPop, it's an iPhone 4/4S case… with an integrated WiMax radio.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.
To stop all future emails from feed2email.net you can reply to this email with STOP in the subject line. Thanks
