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.
The Facebook Phone Rumor Is Back
Apr 25, 1:06PM
Once upon a time Michael Arrington broke the news that Facebook was developing its own phone. That was in 2010. However in a followup interview with TechCrunch, Mark Zuckerberg killed the notion, saying they're pursuing a horizontal strategy that will put a social layer on top of existing platforms. "We're not trying to compete with Apple or the Droid or any other hardware manufacturer for that matter," he said. But now, two years later, that strategy may have changed. A new report hit today stating that Facebook and HTC are co-developing a customized Android smartphone. This phone, said to be developed exclusively for Facebook, would integrate all of the social network's functions into the mobile platform. Per unnamed industry sources, the device would launch at the earliest in the third quarter of 2012.Cloud Storage Platform Box Debuts New Enhanced API; Partners With General Assembly And TechStars
Apr 25, 12:59PM
Cloud storage platform Box has been aggressively targeting and engaging developers in building out an ecosystem around the company's collaboration and file storage platform. Last Fall, Box launched a platform for developers building off of the Box platform, called the Box Innovation Network (/bin). And earlier this year, we learned about Box OneCloud, a mobile cloud and API for the enterprise that allows businesses to access, edit, and share content from their mobile devices. Today, Box is debuting a new, more powerful API for its platform, and is announcing new partnerships with New York City startup incubators General Assembly and TechStars. Box's offering for the enterprise has evolved from a simple file storage platform to a collaborative application where businesses can actually communicate about document updates, sync files remotely, and even add features from Salesforce, Google Apps, NetSuite, Yammer and others. The company says 80 percent of the Fortune 500 are using Box; and now has over 10 million users with more than 200 million files accessed via Box each month.Apple's Next WWDC Dates Announced: June 11-June 15
Apr 25, 12:43PM
The day after another monster set of earnings from Apple, the company is continuing the momentum. Today, Apple has announced the dates for its next Worldwide Developers Conference: June 11-15, held in its now-traditional venue, the Moscone West in San Francisco. Expect the usual wave of speculation leading up to June, especially since Apple is already preparing us for news at the event: "We have a great WWDC planned this year and can't wait to share the latest news about iOS and OS X Mountain Lion with developers," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing said in a statement.Java Application Deployment Platform Jelastic Raises $2 Million from Russian Venture Funds
Apr 25, 12:01PM
Jelastic, a U.S./Ukrainian/Russian provider of a cloud-based deployment platform for Java apps, has closed a $2 million Series A funding round from Russia and CIS-focused Almaz Capital Partners and Foresight Ventures, a global fund with a bias towards Russia and the US. Jelastic, which competes with Heroku and Google App Engine, offers developers of Java applications a hosted platform based around standard software stacks, which it says helps avoid lock-ins and code changes. The company launched its public beta in October 2011, and since then has picked up over 15,000 unique users.Study: Apple's iOS And Mac Platforms Drive The Most Search Requests; Linux the Least, Says Chitika
Apr 25, 10:57AM
Google is the undisputed search giant at the moment, with some 92 percent of all searches passing through its engines worldwide at the moment. But when it comes to what browsers seem to be driving the most search queries, Google's platforms, surprisingly, are not in the lead. According to research out today from the ad network Chitika, when analyzing web browsing traffic, Apple's iOS mobile platform drives the highest proportion of search queries: 54 percent of all iOS web traffic is devoted to search, the company says. Its Macintosh OS is the second-most search-friendly: some 48 percent of all web traffic on Macs is in the form of search queries. Both are well above the average percentage of search queries across all major platforms, which stands at 36 percent, says Chitika.Enterprise Cloud Storage And Peer-To-Peer Backup Service Symform Raises $11M
Apr 25, 10:00AM
Cloud storage and backup service Symform has raised $11 million led by WestRiver Capital, with participation from existing investors OVP and Longworth Capital. The Symform Cloud Storage Network provides businesses with unlimited offsite cloud storage and backup services. Symform says its global network encrypts, shreds, and geo-distributes data, providing a more secure and and higher-performing cloud data storage and backup service. In fact, Symform is a global peer-to-peer network for data storage, where users contribute excess local storage to the network in exchange for free or flat fee cloud storage.How Ridiculous Does This Headline Sound?
Apr 25, 8:57AM
So I am sitting here staring at this New York Times article and it is titled "Apple Chief's Offhand Comment Spawns Internet Quip," which is probably one of the most ridiculous news headlines I've ever seen, bar this. The word "Quip" here is probably the issue, because who says that? Really who says that?With A New Educational Platform, TED Gives Teachers The Keys To A Flipped Classroom
Apr 25, 4:11AM
You may know TED, not as the guy from marketing, but as the nonprofit organization devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading" -- or as the set of global conferences, Talks, and videos that touch on the many heady, relevant issues surrounding Technology, Entertainment, and Design. As an increasingly powerful medium through which the world's experts share their hard-won knowledge, TED is also an educator. In March, the organization launched the first phase of its "TED-Ed" initiative, in practice a series of a dozen short animated YouTube videos "created for high school students and lifelong learners," in the big picture an invitation to teachers to collaborate with TED to create more effective video lessons that can be used in classrooms. Tonight, TED is announcing the second phase of its education initiative -- a website that lives on TED.com, which is designed to enable teachers to create unique lesson plans around its video content.Fan Wars: Former Google Biz Dev Head David Dowd Becomes VP Of Social Marketer FanBridge
Apr 25, 2:57AM
Right now there's a cutthroat battle between social marketing platforms to represent the world's biggest brands. In hopes of seducing dollars from offline and clients from competitors, social marketing platform FanBridge has just hired away Buddy Media's GM of lifestyle brands David Dowd. Previously the head of branded content biz dev for Google, his experience courting fashion, retail, luxury and other companies there and at Buddy Media will give him the edge as FanBridge's new VP of brands. Selling big brands on the future is tough. There's plenty of social skeptics still clinging to TV. Many companies aren't shifting their whole marketing budgets to digital, but that's the direction the money is flowing. Be it Buddy Media, FanBridge, or their many competitors, those who can lock down trend-setting clients and get positioned for the coming wave will surf their way to multi-million dollar contracts.OpenUDID Gets Back-Up From 17 Mobile Ad Companies In The Hunt For UDID Alternatives
Apr 25, 2:37AM
OpenUDID, a new, open-source identification scheme created by marketing company Appsfire, says it has rounded up support from 17 mobile advertising companies (including itself) as developers look for alternatives to the UDID. Mobile app developers are scrambling for solutions as Apple phases out an older unique ID system called UDIDs that was criticized for compromising consumer privacy. A straightforward ID system is key for developers who want to understand who their users are and how to target them with advertising, so developers are looking for alternatives that Apple will tolerate. There are several contenders and many different methods, but it's still not clear which one the industry will settle on.Birchbox Co-Founder Katia Beauchamp: We're Poised To Grow Way Beyond Beauty [TCTV]
Apr 25, 2:22AM
Birchbox, the New York City-based startup that provides a monthly delivery service of beauty and personal care product samples, seemed like a lark to some when it when it first came on the scene back in September 2010. Since then, of course, Birchbox has been validated a few times over. Female-oriented websites have skyrocketed -- Pinterest, anyone? -- and the subscription commerce space has taken off as well. Today, Birchbox itself now has more than 100,000 paying subscribers, a staff of 60 full-time employees, and has raised nearly $12 million in venture capital funding. So when we heard that Birchbox co-founder Katia Beauchamp (pronounced "Beechum") was in San Francisco this past week, we invited her to swing by TechCrunch TV to give us an in-person update on how things are going at her company. You can watch our full interview in the video embedded above, but here are some of the topics we touched on:Incubator Lemnos Labs Is Looking For Its Next Class Of Hardware Startups
Apr 25, 12:34AM
It seems like everyone's worried about an incubator bubble, but seriously — Lemnos Labs is doing something different. It's not just incubating for the latest social network or iPhone app. Instead, it's looking for startups that build hardware. At first, hardware and incubators sounds like an odd match, since the incubator boom is driven, at least in part, by the way that the Web has driven down the costs of starting a company. Hardware, on the other hand, sounds expensive and not conducive to the rapid iteration that that's now part of startup doctrine. However, co-founder Jeremy Conrad says that thanks to developments like rapid prototyping, it's becoming faster and cheaper to build a hardware startup too.Google+ Launches Share Button, Ignores That Few Users = No Referral Traffic = No Installs
Apr 25, 12:06AM
Blogs and content sites are only willing to give up valuable real estate and clutter themselves with social sharing buttons if they get ample referral traffic in return. That's the big problem with the Google+ Share button that launched today with no launch partners or live examples of it in use. The embeddable button for posting webpages to the Google+ news feed with an optional comment is going to struggle for installs unless Google can prove it drives page views. After flops like the Google Buzz and +1 buttons, and plenty of competition, it's going to be a tough sell. In the end, it could backfire, sidestepping the bullshit registered user counts Google cites as awesome growth and exposing the social network as a place few people spend time. And it's all kind of sad because the G+ Share button could be the answer to the Google+ content drought.ComScore: Travel Sites Grow 10% To 69.7M Uniques In March, With TripAdvisor In The Lead
Apr 24, 11:22PM
ComScore today released its analysis of this month's top properties on ye olde Webernets in the U.S. There are a number of points of interest, but among them, it seems that lotto sites were the top beneficiary of U.S. internet traffic. This was largely a result of the unprecedented Mega Millions jackpot, which became the largest jackpot in U.S. and world history, reaching $656 million in March. Lotto sites drew nearly 29 million visitors (with MegaMillions.com grabbing the top spot), up 25 percent from February, making it the biggest mover in March. Travel sites were the next biggest beneficiary of traffic, according to comScore, as Americans looked to book last-minute spring break trips and summer travel. This made travel info sites one of the top-gainers, up 10 percent to 69.7 million visitors in March.Chinese Web Search Giant Baidu Sees $677 Million In Q1 Revenue, Up 75% Year-Over-Year
Apr 24, 11:21PM
Baidu, China's leading web search company today issued its quarterly earnings report for the first three months of 2012. The company made $677 million in top-line revenue, up 75 percent from the revenue it posted in the first quarter of 2011. Baidu performed just as strongly at the bottom line as well, posting a net income of $299 million, up 75.9 percent year-over-year. In case you need some context for that: Google reported revenues of $10.65 billion and net income of $2.89 billion for the first quarter of 2012; Facebook's Q1 revenue was a bit over $1 billion.WTF Was That "Happy" Song At The End Of The Apple Earnings Call?
Apr 24, 11:19PM
Earning calls are super fascinating when you think about it; For multiple hours a quarter we tune in with the thousands of other tech bloggers to dissect the financials of the public companies we spend our lives covering. Here at TC we've started calling covering these calls "putting our Rao face on," inspired by our star senior editor Leena Rao, who is just amazing at covering earnings. Like any other collective experience, these calls have their own unique culture; Yahoo earnings calls were particularly hilarious back when Carol Bartz was CEO ("I'm going to go get a Diet Coke," I recall her randomly interjecting with once). And I've played more than one drinking game with fellow bloggers on the Google call (Larry Page says "excited," A LOT. Like so much that this happened.).Workout Spots Wants To Be The OpenTable For Fitness
Apr 24, 11:16PM
Workout Spots is hoping to bring the oh-so-popular "OpenTable for X" approach to the world of fitness. The goal, as the name implies, is to help people find nearby gyms, and to register for classes at those gyms. The interface is pretty straightforward — you just enter your zip code, how far you're willing to travel, whether you're looking for a "spot" or a class, and in the latter case, the class type, and then you get a list of results. Each gym has a profile with basic information and a calendar of classes. If you find a class that you like, you can register directly from the Workout Spots site.See It To Believe It: AOL Is Launching AOL On, A Video Network To Drive Video Ad Sales
Apr 24, 10:49PM
AOL has had a few knocks from shareholders over whether it's on the right track with its content strategy -- a mix of high-volume, ad-based websites that cover lifestyle, tech, travel, news and more -- but CEO Tim Armstrong has stayed the course, and today the company is launching a video portal that it hopes will prove that the value of those holdings extends beyond even what you see on the sites themselves. AOL On, as the new site is called, is a premium content portal that will work across desktop, mobile and tablet optimized sites and apps, as well as connected TV devices. And the guy running it, Ran Harnevo, SVP of AOL On, makes clear that it is nothing like a YouTube wannabe: "No dogs on skateboards, and no upload button," he says.Unlike "Thermonuclear" Steve Jobs, Apple CEO Tim Cook Says He'd Rather Settle Litigation
Apr 24, 10:23PM
Looks like Tim Cook doesn't quite want to go as "thermonuclear" on rival phone makers as Apple founder Steve Jobs did. Cook didn't sound so eager to pursue patent infringement suits against Samsung, Motorola and HTC on today's quarterly earnings call. "I'd highly prefer to settle versus battle," Cook said. "But you know the key thing that's very important is that Apple doesn't become the developer to the world." He added very pointedly, "I've always hated litigation. We need people to invent their own stuff." His words are at odds with what iconic Apple founder Steve Jobs in Walter Isaacson's biography:Apple's iTunes Stores Generates $1.9B In Revenue in Q2, Has 600,000 Apps
Apr 24, 10:00PM
Apple's iOS ecosystem keeps on rolling. The company said it has more than 600,000 apps in the store, up from the 550,000 number they confirmed a month ago. On top of that the iTunes store generated $1.9 billion in revenue in the second quarter of this year. Apple didn't break out how much of that was devoted to songs versus apps. They also didn't update the recent 25 billion app downloads figure they also shared last month. Just to look back at previous stats the company has shared, Apple said it has paid out more than $4 billion to developers cumulatively. Google's store in contrast has at least 450,000 apps and it still lags in monetization (although it's improving!)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
