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2tor Raises $26M D Round To Put Online Degrees In The Same Class As Their On-Campus Rivals
Apr 02, 12:14PM
If you're unfamiliar with 2tor, this may do the trick. Today, the education startup is announcing that it has closed a $26 million series D round of financing, led by Tondern Capital, an affiliate of The Hellman Company and Silicon Valley Bank Capital, with participation from its existing investors, which include Bessemer Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, and City Light Capital. The startup's significant new infusion of capital brings its total investment to just under $97 million, making it one of the highest-funded education startups in the country -- if not the top dog.Dell Acquires Cloud Client Computing Company Wyse To Expand Desktop Virtualization Products
Apr 02, 12:09PM
Dell has just announced the acquisition of cloud client computing company Wyse Technology to expand its desktop virtualization offerings. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Wyse portfolio includes thin, zero and cloud PC client solutions with advanced management, desktop virtualization and cloud software supporting desktops, laptops and next generation mobile devices. Wyse independently partners with datacenter, networking and collaboration providers within its global partner ecosystem to help businesses move to a secure cloud – in a private, public, government or, even in a personal cloud.Dachis Group's Advocate Insight Finds A Brand's Most Valuable Fans
Apr 02, 11:00AM
There may be millions of people or more following and commenting on a brand, but how can it find the ones worth reaching out to? That's the question that Dachis Group is trying to answer with a new product called Advocate Insight. Founder and CEO Jeffrey Dachis (previously the co-founder of interactive agency Razorfish) says the new product will help brands "engage at scale." He contrasts that to tools that just help companies push their content to social networks. It's not enough to broadcast your message to fans, he says — you also have to spread your message by reaching out to the most engaged and influential of those "brand advocates." (Other companies, such as Zuberance, are also trying to help businesses target brand advocates specifically.)Survey: Folks Rate New iPad As Best Ever; Hot On Retina Display, Pretty Cool On Heat-Gate
Apr 02, 10:46AM
Another consumer milestone of sorts for Apple, and one more sign of how competitors are going to have to raise the bar yet again: the new iPad is proving to be highest-rated yet of the three versions of the iPad tablet released so far by the company, according to the latest report from ChangeWave Research. In a survey from the last week of March, more than four out of every five owners -- 82 percent, to be exact -- said they were "very satisfied" with the new device, with 16 percent saying they are "somewhat satisfied." And while the high-resolution Retina display has proven to be the biggest hit with new owners, one of the more high profile drawbacks, claims that the device was getting too hot during prolonged use -- turned out to be not such a hot issue after all. The caveat in this research is that it only covers 200 people. 200! That's nothing, and only a small portion of the 25,000 that ChangeWave says it has access to for surveys. On the more constructive side, this is one more indicator of how this newest tablet from Apple will progress in sales in the months ahead.Updated: Has Dating Site Badoo Found A Love Match In The Form Of Hot or Not?
Apr 02, 8:17AM
Maybe even dating sites deserve to find a special someone at one point in their lives... it looks like Badoo, the UK-based dating site, has joined forces with rival Hot or Not. The two have yet to issue a formal release of any kind, but Hotornot now boasts the same amount of registered users as Badoo (146 million+), and Hotornot now directly refers users to Badoo's terms and conditions (pictured below). There have been a few observed signs from users, too...Facebook's Mobile Viral Channels Are Working For Wooga, Europe's Biggest Social Gaming Company
Apr 02, 5:04AM
Viral channels are slowly and inevitably starting to matter for mobile game developers. For ages, many top developers would try and climb up the charts through a combination of mobile advertising, offer walls, free app promotions or more nefariously, download bots. But as the charts have become crowded with north of a half-million apps and as Apple has clamped down on less savory means of acquiring users like bots, other ways of getting users are becoming more important. Wooga, which is Europe's biggest social game developer, is an example. Today, the Berlin-based company is saying that it has crossed 11 million downloads, which is respectable considering that the company only really entered the mobile space three months ago when it brought Diamond Dash to iOS.Tandem: Mobile Accelerator Unveils Inaugural Batch, Gives Sneak Peek At Round Two
Apr 02, 4:43AM
Tandem Entrepreneurs, for those unfamiliar, is a Silicon Valley-based mobile startup accelerator. It's somewhat unusual, in that there's no demo day, or set graduation date, and it encourages its founders to stick around past the end of its six-month program. Tandem began as a capital fund in 2007, funding and working closely with startups like Play In The City, Playhaven, and Zumodrive -- until it launched its mobile-focused accelerator in July of last year. Today, with the hard work beginning to pay off, Tandem is officially unveiling its first batch of companies -- and, in a bonus -- is giving us a sneak peek at the two startups chosen to participate in its winter program.SoFi Reinvents College Loans With Alumni Funding
Apr 02, 4:00AM
As the cost of a college education continues to rise, a startup called SoFi is offering a way for alumni to offer students financial assistance and more. Co-founder and CEO Mike Cagney describes the current student loan system as a "classic market failure," resulting in students who are stuck with high interest rates and heavy debt that they struggle to pay off. He says that if you can remove government from the equation (specifically government loans) and replace it with alumni, then "you create a very virtuous cycle."Up To 1.5M Credit Card Numbers May Have Been Stolen In Visa, MasterCard Security Breach
Apr 02, 2:16AM
On Friday, we heard the news that payments processor Global Payments was hit with a massive security breach involving MasterCard and Visa cardholders. At the time it was unclear the reach of the security issue, which was being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service. Tonight, Global Payments reports that those cards affected in the breach processing system were confined to North America and up to 1.5 million card numbers may have been exported. Visa had originally pegged that number at around 50,000 cards stolen. So far, the investigation has revealed that card numbers may have been stolen, but that cardholder names, addresses and social security numbers were not obtained by the criminals. As stated in the release: Based on the forensic analysis to date, network monitoring and additional security measures, the company believes that this incident is contained.The Internet Has Killed April Fools'
Apr 02, 1:58AM
It's hard to tell if the Wikipedia article on April Fools' Day is itself an April Fools' prank. Tidbits of the ubiquitous holiday's history seem like jokes in and of themselves; "In France and Italy, children and adults traditionally tack paper fish on each other's back as a trick and shout "april fish!" in their local language ("poisson d'avril!" and "pesce d'aprile!" in French and Italian respectively)."And this brings me to my point; The Internet has killed April Fools'. Back in the day you used to be able to tell your friends you were engaged, pregnant or had Cancer without them gushing all over your Facebook page or Twitter and immediately freaking out people who you didn't want to prank, like your family.
Dirty Pillows: The Unsolved Problems Of Sharing Services
Apr 02, 12:39AM
When my wife and I travel, we rarely stay in hotels. We usually either stay in hostels or apartments. The apartments are usually found and booked on Airbnb. We're big fans of the service, and think it's one of the best ways to experience a foreign city. However, some recent events have made me think a bit deeper about this maturing marketplace and the whole spectrum of collaborative consumption services. We are currently on a trip to Tokyo for an speaking engagement and some mentoring of the teams at Open Network Lab, a Tokyo-based incubator I wrote about last fall during our last Tokyo visit. Last night, we arrived to our apartment. The amenities and space was almost exactly as described. But there was something about our place that didn't appear in the Airbnb description, which almost made us walk out immediately: the cleanliness of the bedding.Why Designers Should Join Software Startups
Apr 01, 11:03PM
Editor's Note: This guest post is written by Uzi Shmilovici, CEO and founder of Future Simple, the company behind Base CRM. In 1919, Walter Gropius founded in Germany the Bauhaus, a school for engineering and design, and gave birth to one of the most important and influential design movements in history: Modernism. Gropius' big idea was that designers and engineers should collaborate closely in order to build phenomenal products. Later, in the mid-1950s, Braun adopted this approach and had phenomenal success in building signature products, many of which were commercial hits, made huge impact on people's lives and are now museum exhibits.Greylock-Backed Citrus Lane Helps Parents Discover 'Best Of' Products For Little Ones
Apr 01, 9:00PM
The dawn of subscription commerce has spawned a number of startups in technology including BirchBox, Kiwi Crate, Babbaco and many others. Citrus Lane is one of the latest startups to tackle the model, which sends a box of kiddie goodies to members each month. The startup is focused on parents as the client, and aims to help moms and dads discover interesting and 'Best Of' products for those expecting babies, as well as for newborns to three-year-olds. Each month, Citrus Lane will send parents a box filled with user-tested and vetted toys and products for babies and toddlers. Each month has a theme. So for example, March's theme for the baby box was "Dining Out With Baby," and included snack cases, a sippy cup, apple crisps and baby food. The startup prides itself on delivering organic and natural products.Bootstrapped Startup Saves Over $100K By Dropping IE
Apr 01, 8:20PM
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Tyler Rooney, a co-founder of online portfolio startup, 4ormat. It's not every day that you start a business and quickly decide to say "no" to 70 percent of your potential customers. In retrospect, this turned out to be 4ormat's secret weapon. At 4ormat, our goal is to provide an easy way for creative professionals to create and manage an online portfolio website. Although the portfolio itself looks great in all browsers, to this day, the portfolio building interface does not support Internet Explorer. And we don't just mean IE6 or even IE7. We mean every version of Internet Explorer. This might seem drastic, but consider this: when we started 4ormat in 2008, IE had almost 70% market share and IE6 was still used by one-in-four desktops. Chrome, for example, had only been out for 2 months. To call it drastic would be an understatement.TechCrunch Primer: A Crash Course In Cool Camera Apps
Apr 01, 7:56PM
Let's face it — there are too many camera and photo sharing apps out there, and not enough time in the day to give each one of them a try. If you've been mulling over which camera app deserves your love and affection, or just have no earthly idea where to start, take a gander below at some of your best options for shooting and sharing your life on the go.The Market Curve: The Life Cycle Of New Technology Markets
Apr 01, 7:15PM
Editor's Note: This guest post is written by Doug Pepper, who is a General Partner at InterWest Partners where he invests in SaaS, mobile, consumer Internet and digital media companies. He blogs at dougpepper.blogspot.com. Everyone expects startups, even successful ones, to undergo a cycle of hype, disappointment and ultimately growth on the way to a sustainable business. But what about new technology markets themselves? Does the growth of a new market follow a similar pattern? Fred Wilson recently wrote about the twists and turns that startups face (expanding on Paul Graham's astute "Startup Curve"). I'd like to take those ideas further and describe the "Market Curve" -- a similar path that new markets take on the path to sustainability.Facebook Considers Adding The Hate Button
Apr 01, 6:48PM
In 2010, TechCrunch broke the news that Facebook was going to release a "Like" button for the whole darn Internet. Now, TechCrunch has learned Facebook is considering a "Hate" button as well. According to Facebook's S-1 filing, users are now generating 2.7 billion Likes and Comments per day. With the Hate button, Facebook expects to at least double that. The S-1 noted "popular Pages on Facebook include Lady Gaga, Disney, and Manchester United, each of which has more than 20 million Likes." Many inside the company think the Hates could easily top that.April Fools 2012: We Ruin Every (Tech-Related) Joke On The Internets
Apr 01, 6:18PM
Happy April 1st, Everybody! It's that very special time of year -- the day when tech companies break out their clown shoes to make their annual attempt at being funny. As a public service, we've rounded up every tech-related April Fools joke that we could find, and we've even separated the wheat from the chaff -- highlighting the stuff that's actually funny. The LOLs, the FAILs, the ROFLs, the WTFs. Just for you. We'll update this throughout the day, and if we missed any, feel free to link to them in the comments. (By the way, if you're one of those folks who finds April Fools super-stressful because you're constantly being punked, rest assured that TechCrunch would never do that to you.)Internet Freedom: Diplomats Join The Dissidents, Geeks And Censors
Apr 01, 5:30PM
In its new "Enemies of the Internet" report, the international watchdog group Reporters Without Borders depicts an Internet under unprecedented pressure from the world's autocratic regimes. The study lists twelve such "enemies," including Iran, North Korea, China and Saudi Arabia, and observes that an increasing number of governments are not content merely to take domestic steps to control online space. "Freedom of expression on the Internet," the study notes, "is no longer the sole preserve of dissidents, geeks and censors. Diplomats have followed in their wake." Internet freedom has become a foreign policy issue.What Smart Techies Are Stealing From Finance
Apr 01, 4:15PM
"Portfolio" is a word that Silicon Valley loves. Venture firms have portfolios of startups, web designers have portfolios of their work and even public relations agencies have a portfolio of clients. Now chief information officers and IT architects have portfolios of computing power made up of physical servers, virtual machines and public cloud instances at multiple providers. For most people, a portfolio is little more than an accumulation of individual decisions over time. Look in a typical VC's portfolio, and you'll see a storage locker stuffed with buzzword bingo startups slouching toward an orderly shutdown. A web designer's portfolio? A collection of unrelated commissions.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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