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.
AmazonSupply Debuts As A E-Commerce Vertical For Industrial Materials, Mechanical Parts And Hardware
Apr 23, 1:13PM
Amazon is debuting a new vertical today, called AmazonSupply, which is a new site for mechanical parts and other hardware for business and industrial sectors. Amazon says the site sells over 500,000 items, including bench-top centrifuges commonly found in laboratories, radiation detectors designed for environmental testing, and carbide end mills used to machine titanium. AmazonSupply aims to fulfill the parts and supply needs of the business, industrial, scientific and commercial. Customers can shop for items by product, material and brand across 14 categories, including Lab & Scientific, Test, Measure & Inspect, Occupational Health & Safety, Janitorial & Sanitation, Office, Fleet & Vehicle Maintenance, Power & Hand Tools, Fasteners, Power Transmission and more.Is Norway Leaving Its Tech Startups Out In The Cold?
Apr 23, 1:11PM
I am regularly reminded of the amazing innovation coming out of the Nordic region. Countries like Sweden, Finland and even tiny Denmark regularly punch above their weight, producing global companies like Spotify, Rovio, Tradeshift and Everbread. But there remains one country which seems bizarrely content not to engage nearly as much with the global tech scene, and that's Norway. There's a huge irony here. The web browser Opera started out in 1994 as a research project within Telenor, Norway's main telco. If they'd played it right we would be continuing to talk about Opera, rather than Chrome, Safari or Explorer these days. And there remains a few bright sparks on the horizon like the innovative Bipper, founded by Silje Vallestad. But take a look at the stats and they are disappointing.Dropbox Sharing Gets Ridiculously Easy With Links
Apr 23, 1:00PM
In the words of Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, sharing documents and other files online is "bafflingly, still really difficult." I mean, clearly it's doable through email and, yes, services such as Dropbox, but it's still kind of a pain. With a new feature launching today, Houston and his team are trying to make things as absolutely simple as possible. And it looks like they've succeeded. Houston and Product Manager Ivan Kirigin demonstrated the feature to TechCrunch Editor Eric Eldon and me last week. It was one of those demos that went flew by — in a good way. Now, if you want to share a file in Dropbox, you just click on the file, then click on "Get Link", and Dropbox will automatically generate a custom URL. You can share that URL via email or however else you like, and whoever clicks on it will be able to view the file in their browser. Simple, and also the first easy way for Dropbox users to share files with people who don't have Dropbox accounts.Google Ventures-Backed Copious Debuts A More Personalized, Social Marketplace For Fashion
Apr 23, 1:00PM
Last year, we wrote about Copious, an eBay-like marketplace that leveraged your social graph on Facebook. The site aimed to use your social graph from Facebook to make the marketplace experience that you'd find on Amazon or eBay more social, allowing buyers and sellers to see if friends in common, previous purchases, social reviews and more. Today, the company is launching a new version of its marketplace, focused exclusively on fashion and with a number of new personalization features. Copious now asks shoppers who join the site to connect through Facebook or Twitter and to follow five trends that fit their style, everything from color-blocking and vintage wear. You'll also be suggested people to follow on the site that match your chosen trends. By following trends and people, shoppers will get a more socially curated experience every time they visit.Wake Up, Sheeple: Samsung Hypes Next Galaxy S Smartphone
Apr 23, 12:21PM
The best way to get someone to spread your dumb video is to include something controversial. That's day one material in Viral YouTube Marketing 101. And so, Samsung, clearly a graduate of said class tapped that knowledge and took a shot at iPhone users, somewhat calling them sheep for using the same phone as everyone else. Funny? Only in the sense that this lame jab is the high point of an otherwise humdrum video spot. Seriously, this might be the worst teaser in the history of teasers.Obama Wants Sanctions On Those Using Technology In Human Rights Abuses
Apr 23, 11:35AM
Much has been said about the role social media has come to play in the global landscape over the last few years. Whether one sees it as the tool of revolutions or not, Facebook, Twitter, and other media played an integral role in organizing the socio-political upheavals in Egypt, Libya, and across the Middle East and North Africa, allowing those oppressed and marginalized by despotic regimes to communicate and organize, and to expose human rights violations. Of course, social and other forms of digital media have just as much potential for ill as they do for use among democracy advocates -- something that has not gone unnoticed in the White House. According to a report from the Washington Post, President Obama today plans to issue an executive order that gives U.S. officials the ability to impose sanctions on foreign bodies that use these "new technologies" to carry out human rights violations.Clicks Be Gone: AdTech Disrupter Moat Raises $12M Series B From Mayfield, Others
Apr 23, 11:28AM
Ad-tech may not be the most obvious face of digital advertising, but in a world in which the role of big data is getting ever more essential to how things work, it is taking up an increasingly important role. One sign of that comes from the funding that ad-tech players are getting in this space: today, ad-tech startup Moat announced that it has picked up a $12 million investment led by the Mayfield Fund and including existing investors. The Series B investment takes the total amount invested in the company to $16.5 million with past investors including Ron Conway's SV Angel, Founders Fund, Vast Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Founder Collective, and First Round Capital; as well as the WGI Group, an investment vehicle from Moat's founders, Right Media ex-CEO Mike Walrath and brothers Jonah and Noah Goodhart.Peter Chernin's Media Group Picks Up $200M From Providence, Others; Will Announce First Deals 'Within Weeks' [Yahoo Won't Be Among Them]
Apr 23, 10:46AM
A sign of more big money being poured into the tech sector, by way of a new development for the Chernin Group, the digital media company founded by ex-News Corp. executive Peter Chernin: it has sold a minority stake to a group of investors led by Providence Equity Partners, reportedly for $200 million. The Chernin Group, which has invested in a number of hot online properties including Tumblr and Flipboard, says that the deal gives it the financial muscle to go after "any deal of any size" anywhere in the world, according to a report in the FT. The deals will focus on media assets, and will span the range from incubator investments through to later-stage funding rounds. The first investments will be announced "within weeks."Estonian Accelerator Startup Wise Guys Announces First Startups
Apr 23, 10:41AM
The new Estonian accelerator program Startup Wise Guys, backed by the Estonian government-owned Estonian Development Fund and some former engineers from Skype, has just announced the seven teams it will be working with. Two of them from Estonia and one from Croatia, Ukraine, Germany, The Netherlands and UK. Wise Guys received over 200 applications, and will provide the shortlisted projects with an extensive startup developing program. The projects will be supported by a squad of international mentors. The program starts on April 23 and includes three steps: shaping (3 weeks), building (4 weeks) and selling (3 weeks), supported by Wise Guys mentors. There will be an Investor Day in Tallinn on June 30th, followed by one in London on July 6th. Startup Wise Guys, launched few months ago, is a joint effort of the players in Estonian startup ecosystem to bring international mentors to Estonia and attract talent across Eastern Europe and CIS countries. The first members of the new Startup Wise Guys family are:TA Associates Invests In Q&A Site Answers.com
Apr 23, 10:00AM
Q&A platform Answers.com is announcing a 'significant' minority investment from private equity firm TA Associates. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. Answers operates a community-generated Q&A site at Answers.com, and was acquired by AFCV Holdings, a portfolio company of Summit Partners, for $127 million in cash last year. AFCV then delisted Answers, which was a public company, from the NASDAQ and took the company private. Shareholders were very unhappy with the terms of the deal, claiming it tremendously undervalued Answers.com, and tried to block the sale. Answers was also hit with a round of layoffs in June 2011.20M Users Strong, Lookout Partners With Deutsche Telekom To Bring Mobile Security Apps To Europe
Apr 23, 8:00AM
Lookout, a company that offers security services for a number of smartphone platforms, is continuing its international expansion to Europe with a strategic partnership with European telecommunications giant. Deutsche Telekom. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed. For background, Lookout's web-based, cloud-connected applications for Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and iOS devices help users from losing their phones and identifies and block threats on a consumer's phone. Users simply download the software to a device, and it will act as a tracking application, data backup and a virus protector much like security software downloaded to a computer. People can also manage multiple mobile devices and locate a phone or tablet on a Google map. Lookout, which now has 20 million users, says it identified more than 1,000 instances of mobile malware in 2011, which is a significant increase since 2010.Vodafone Buys Cable & Wireless For $1.7B, Gives Mobile Carrier Bigger Window On Enterprise, Broadband
Apr 23, 6:54AM
Big news from the UK this morning: Vodafone, one of Europe's biggest mobile operators, has made a formal offer to buy up the assets of Cable & Wireless Worldwide for £1 billion ($1.7 billion), a deal that catapults Vodafone into running its own fixed line network in the UK and specifically will give it a much bigger view to winning enterprise business -- a big challenge to BT and a mark of further consolidation in the space. Cable & Wireless, first founded in the nineteeth century and one of the biggest operators in Europe, has fallen on hard times more recently and has run through three chief executives since a restructuring in 2010. The deal will make Vodafone the UK's second-largest operator, with £7 billion ($10.5 billion) in annual revenue.Read Offline: News.me Automatically Downloads Your News Whenever You Leave Home
Apr 23, 5:43AM
News.me, the newsreader app hatched in The New York Times' R&D lab and incubated at betaworks, today added a nifty feature to its new iPhone app, which gives readers instant access to their news offline -- whenever they leave the house. The new feature, called Paper Boy, allows users to set their home location using their iPhone's GPS, and thereafter, every time they leave their digs with phone in tow, News.me automatically downloads their social news in the background so that it's ready to read offline as they go about their day.Adobe Officially Unveils CS6 And Its $49/Month All-Inclusive Creative Cloud Subscription Service
Apr 23, 4:01AM
Today is a big day for Adobe. Not only is the company officially unveiling the next versions of virtually all of the applications in its Creative Suite 6, but Adobe is also launching its Creative Cloud online offerings. This launch marks a major change in how Adobe is selling and marketing its flagship product: while the company will continue to offer a shrink-wrapped version of CS6, it's also introducing a subscription service with this update. For $49/month with an annual subscription or $79/month for month-to-month memberships, users can now get full access to any CS6 tool, including Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and AfterEffects. The suite will also include Adobe's new HTML5 design and development tools Muse and Edge Preview and will be deeply integrated into the company's tablet apps. Users will be able to download and install these apps on up to two machines.Google Makes Its Big Video Push With AdWords For Video
Apr 23, 4:00AM
A couple of weeks ago, early participants in the new AdWords for Video program gathered at the YouTube offices. The ostensible justification for the meeting was a fancy photo shoot, but YouTube executives also gave a little pep talk, laying out their vision to make video advertising available to small businesses. They even let themselves get a little dreamy, imagining a day when video might become as lucrative for Google as search. So what is AdWords for Video? It integrates video campaigns into the AdWords dashboard, where Google's search and display advertisers are already bidding for and managing their campaign. So small businesses can treat video ads as just another campaign that they're running with Google, rather than something big and scary. It could be particularly useful for the ones that already have a big presence on YouTube that they'd like to promote. Specifically, AdWords for Video allows you to buy Google's TrueView ad units, which can appear in YouTube videos, alongside search results, and in the company's display network.Andreessen Horowitz Made $78M Off $250,000 Investment in Instagram
Apr 23, 2:30AM
Andreessen Horowitz revealed that it made $78 million off its $250,000 seed investment in Instagram's billion-dollar acquisition in a post that was meant to quell criticism that it "fumbled" its involvement with the company. "Ordinarily, when someone criticizes me for only making 312 times my money, I let the logic of their statement speak for itself," wrote general partner Ben Horowitz. "However, in this case, the narrative that some critics put forth has the nasty side effect of casting two outstanding entrepreneurs—Kevin and Dalton Caldwell—in an unfair light and glosses over an important ethical issue that we faced." While Andreessen Horowitz was one of Instagram's very earlier investors, it said it didn't follow-on because of a conflict of interest with another company it funded. The firm had supported Picplz, another photo-sharing concept that didn't end up having as much momentum as Instagram. The company behind it eventually changed changed course and turned into App.net, which gives other mobile developers landing pages and other tools for acquiring users.Web Video Sucks, But Here's How It Can Be Great
Apr 23, 2:29AM
Editor's Note: Jordan Kurzweil is Co-CEO of Independent Content, an agency that helps media companies launch new digital products and businesses. Prior to starting Independent Content, Jordan worked at AOL running original programming, and News Corp, where he helped bring its traditional brands to digital. You can follow him on Twitter @jordankurzweil. I love movies. I love TV shows. I hate web videos. They suck. But let me qualify: An overwhelming number of professionally produced made-for-the-web videos are just not worth watching and barely hold a viewer's attention for their miniscule run-time. Largely, they're ill-conceived, poorly executed, poorly commercialized or downright boring.The Billion Dollar Mind Trick
Apr 23, 1:18AM
Yin asked not to be identified by her real name. A young addict in her mid-twenties, she lives in Palo Alto and, despite her addiction, attends Stanford University. She has all the composure and polish you'd expect of a student at a prestigious school, yet she succombs to her habit throughout the day. She can't help it; she's compulsively hooked. Yin is an Instagram addict. The photo sharing social network, recently purchased by Facebook for $1 billion, captured the minds of Yin and 40 million others like her. The acquisition demonstrates the increasing importance -- and immense value created by -- habit-forming technologiesAs Pinterest's Hype Peaks, Growth May Be Slowing
Apr 23, 12:31AM
Pinterest has been on a hot streak this year. Or should we say hype streak?
In February, comScore reported that the site had passed 10 million monthly unique users faster than any standalone site ever. Then we started to hear from sources on Sand Hill that the company has attracted interest at a $1 billion valuation. But numbers from third-party sources like Facebook app tracking service, AppData, are pinning a slightly different picture on the image and link-sharing site.
Sins Of The Cloud
Apr 22, 10:40PM
Editor's Note: Alexander Haislip is a marketing executive with cloud-based server automation startup ScaleXtreme and the author of Essentials of Venture Capital. Follow him on Twitter @ahaislip. In the beginning there was the cloud. And it was good. But over time it can also be surprisingly expensive. If you've ever said "Oh my god," at the end of your billing cycle, you're may be starting to think about putting boundaries on this virtual Eden. Yet you'll quickly find that public cloud vice is hard to stamp out. It's ingrained into human nature and finds its expression through self-service IaaS delivery and opaque billing processes. Here are a few of the sins we've seen.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
