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Social Media Gurus Push Conversations Over Kudos, And Fail
May 16, 2:20PM
This is a guest post by Roger Warner of Content and Motion. Here's classic example of how badly some companies are screwing up on social media. Back in February this year Coca-Cola Australia invited its fans to some 'banter' or chat. Fans obliged. Much fun ensued. Coca-Cola looked stupid. What's happening here? Coca Cola has invested tirelessly in its brand for the past 50 years. Now some bright social media spark is conducting inane 'little experiments' for social media 'engagement' that seem hellbent on killing it. Exactly the same thing can happen when young startups try to engage on social networks and think they have to "engage".HTC One X And EVO 4G LTE Held Up In U.S. Customs, Sprint Pushes Back EVO Release Date
May 16, 1:41PM
Here's hoping that you already managed to get your hands on an HTC One X, because it may be a while before they appear on store shelves again. According to a release put out by HTC last night, U.S. Customs has blocked shipments of AT&T's HTC One X and Sprint's Evo 4G LTE thanks to an ITC ruling handed down last year. The news may come as an especially large bummer for Sprint customers looking to upgrade to the new EVO, as a new report from the Wall Street Journal indicates that device will miss its original May 18 launch date. Sprint has since scrubbed their website of references to the device's forthcoming launch, and there's still no word on a revised launch window.Apple And China Mobile Are Talking iPhone, Might Not Reach An Agreement This Year
May 16, 1:21PM
The iPhone might be coming to the world's largest mobile carrier, China Mobile. The world comes from Bloomberg quoting China Mobile's chairman. The report also details that the phone might not hit the carrier's 655 million subscribers yet this year. But the two sides are talking. That's a start. Apple needs China Mobile and China Mobile needs Apple.Workplace Social Network Convo Adds An Android App And Group Chat
May 16, 1:14PM
When it comes to business social networking products, Convo, created by Scrybe Labs, probably doesn't have the name recognition (or the funding) of Yammer. But judging from the demonstration I saw recently, it has a compelling product, and it's announcing some nice additions today. CEO Faizan Buzdar came by the TechCrunch office last week to demonstrate Convo and its new features. It was the first time I'd seen the product, and even though the TechCrunch team pretty much lives in Yammer, I was impressed. When you first open the website or the desktop app, it looks pretty similar to other enterprise social networks — a stream of conversations and shared content from your coworkers.Nielsen: U.S. Consumers Avg App Downloads Up 28% To 41; 4 Of 5 Most Popular Belong To Google
May 16, 1:00PM
With smartphone penetration now at 50 percent in the U.S., the world of apps is seeing a knock-on effect in their popularity: according to a new report from Nielsen, mobile consumers are downloading more apps than ever before, with the average number of apps owned by a smartphone user now at 41 -- a rise of 28 percent on the 32 apps owned on average last year. But at the same time, there are hints of people possibly approaching a limit to how much they might use them: despite the rise in app numbers, the amount of time that people are spending in apps has remained essentially flat: collectively, they are being used for 39 minutes per day today, compared to 37 minutes in 2011.Social Travel Service Gogobot Passes 1 Million Registered Users
May 16, 1:00PM
We've been covering Gogobot since it first launched in early 2010. It took the social travel discovery and advice site a little while to find its niche, but since about the middle of 2011, it's been adding new members rapidly. Today, Gogobot is announcing that it has now surpassed the 1 million registered user mark. According to the company's own data, a new member is signing up for service every 15 seconds. Overall, Gogobot now has 65 times as many members as just a year ago and its users have now shared over 5 million places on the service.Want To Reach Light TV Viewers? Put Ads On YouTube, Says YouTube
May 16, 1:00PM
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The children are our future. You can learn a lot about the future by watching them, particularly by watching how they use technology and how they consume media, and how that will translate into future business models. Take newspapers, for instance: Somewhere along the line the younger generation stopped reading newspapers, opting instead to get there news online. (This idea seems quaint, now, for those of us who make our livings writing for web-only publications.) Or take my generation, which somewhere along the line decided that it didn't want land lines -- who wants a phone that only rings in a place you're rarely at?!?! -- and went mobile-first, and in most cases, mobile-only.As Earlybird Lands LinkedIn Co-Founder, Euro VCs Look To The Valley
May 16, 12:41PM
Lately a trend has emerged: European VCs putting down more roots in Silicon Valley to take advantage of the current scene and act as a bridge for European companies trying to form local partnerships, and of course as a mechanism for M&A or further funding with US-based VCs. One of the more recent firms to do this was Index Ventures, which a year ago put partners on the ground for the first time outside of its bases in the UK and Switzerland. The latest to join that trend is Earlybird Venture Capital out of Berlin which has brought on Valley-based Konstantin Guericke as a venture partner. Is this part of a developing theme?Wave Accounting Raises $12M from Social+Capital Partnership, Charles River Ventures & OMERS Ventures
May 16, 12:32PM
Wave Accounting, which makes 100 percent free accounting software for small and medium-sized businesses, has raised $12 million in a Series B round of financing from the Social+Capital Partnership (s23p), along with existing investors Charles River Ventures and OMERS Ventures. With the funding, Wave plans to continue aggressively increasing headcount, in engineering as well as sales and business development. Wave was founded in July 2009 and launched its free software in November 2010, introducing a cloud-based solution for small businesses that didn't have accounting expertise. The app offers double-entry accounting, invoicing, expense tracking and financial dashboards, which provides data to small business owners who might have previously been reliant on spreadsheets to track payments.Fotopedia Is On A Roll: Now Gets 200M Image Views Per Month, Launches Morocco App
May 16, 12:30PM
Fotopedia is quickly building a reputation for producing beautiful travel-focused photo apps for iOS. Today, the company is launching its latest free app, which focuses on Morocco. The app is optimized for the new iPad's Retina Display and, as usual, features hundreds of stunning professional images.Triptrotting Revamps Its Website, Adds Social Activities & Curated Events For Travelers
May 16, 12:00PM
Fresh on the heels of its $1 million Series A, Triptrotting, a startup that aims to connect travelers with hosts, is relaunching its website with a number of changes. In addition to improved design and functionality, the website also introduces new features which aim to better connect travelers with each other as well as with their local hosts.Don't Call It A Flash Sales Site: With Redesign, Social Shopping Becomes Fab.com's Main Focus
May 16, 12:00PM
Design shopping site Fab.com is debuting the next major release of its platform today, Fab 3.0, which is going live on the U.S.-based Fab.com first. The revamp focuses heavily on improved "social shopping" features, and will soon arrive in Fab's mobile applications before rolling out to Fab's European properties later this year. The update offers over 100 enhancements, both big and small, but the most notable changes involve the redesigned navigation, a new feature the company calls "smile pages," and a major update to Fab's Live Feed which adds Facebook integration and a number of filtering options, while doing away with Google+ in favor of Pinterest.Facebook Revises S-1 Again: Adds 83,818,263 Shares Of Class A Stock, Could Raise $16B
May 16, 11:08AM
Facebook is revising hard and fast in the lead-up to Friday when it is expected to ring in the Nasdaq bell and go public. In short, every revision is continuing to gradually push up the value of the company. Today's S-1 filing has increased Facebook's share offering to 421,233,615 shares of Class A common stock -- 83,818,263 shares more than yesterday's S-1, which had 337,415,352 shares of Class A common stock. With the additional shares, the company could now potentially raise up to $16 billion when it goes public, according to Reuters. Facebook is holding on the $34-38 price range. It will be trading on the Nasdaq as FB.F.ounders Hits New York To Gather The Next Wave Of Global Tech Stars
May 16, 10:13AM
The are almost too many tech events in the calendar these days to mark any particular one out as being worthy of note. I say almost because, on the global stage at least, TechCrunch Disrupt (Ok, Ok, but still...) remains up there because of how much other media attend and, well, just it's general awesomeness. Into this small basket you could also put, for instance, Le Web, Founders Forum in the UK, DLD, The Lobby Conference, the tech elements at Davos and maybe even TED. What few of them are doing however, is celebrating new blood. You tend to see the people who have made it, not the one's about to make it (apart from Disrupt of course). To that end one rapidly emerging event which is doing a very good job of bringing together the Valley, New York, Asia, Europe and emerging global startups like South America is the simply named "F.ounders". And it's coming to New York on June 14/15, and will be attended by our very own editor, Eric Eldon and co-editor Alexia Tsosis.Facebook May Be Worth $100B, But What Are You Worth To Facebook?
May 16, 9:32AM
It's almost here. The big day. Can you feel the excitement? Yes, if all goes according to plan on Friday, Mark Zuckerberg will ring the Nasdaq bell in a hoodie, the big blue social network will go forward with one of the largest IPOs for an internet company in history, the markets will hit a fever pitch, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse will update their statuses -- and the rest of us will just go back to using Twitter. Nonetheless, Facebook is expected to go public at a valuation between $92 and $103 billion. As such, it's pretty clear what Facebook is worth to us (really, to the market), but the real question is: How much are you worth to Facebook? Hmm?Gartner: Q1 2012 Phone Sales Declined 2%, Dragged Down By Asia-Pacific. Samsung Leads All
May 16, 9:25AM
Sign of a maturing marketing flattening out, a lack of compelling devices, or a contraction in the economy? Gartner today released figures that note that worldwide sales of mobile phones were actually down by two percent this quarter, to reach a total of 419.1 million units -- the first time the market has declined since the second quarter of 2009, the analysts say. Gartner's explanation is a slowdown in demand from Asia-Pacific, because of a lack of compelling new devices getting launched in the period: users are simply holding out until something better comes along. Nevertheless, of the vendors that are doing well, Samsung is riding at the top of the list, with 20.7 percent of all mobile sales globally, and among smartphones, it is the only Android vendor to have more than 10 percent market share -- with Android now accounting for 56 percent of all smartphone sales in the quarter.iZettle, The 'Square Of Europe', Checks Out Mobile Payments In The UK With 3,000 Free Readers For SMBs
May 16, 6:59AM
With Square yet to reveal when or where it might offer its mobile payment service in Europe, and PayPal apparently still only talking with would-be partners, the door is wide open for more local players to jump in and pick up some market share. Sweden's iZettle, which often gets compared to Square, is now doing just that: today it is launching its iOS, dongle-based mobile payment service to the UK, four months after its pan-nordic live launch, and as it is preparing to launch an Android version of its product later this year. iZettle kicking off its service by giving away 3,000 card readers to small businesses and sole traders in the country as part of its invitation-only beta, which it is running in cooperation with MasterCard, American Express and Diners Club. In its still brief life, it has seen some decent traction in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, where it now has 50,000 active merchants on its network.Moonfruit Finally Exits For $29 Million In Cash To Re-energize Yell
May 16, 6:01AM
In the white heat of the current tech market it's sometimes easy to forget that some companies, although taking their time, simply become viable businesses - instead of waiting for a call from Facebook or Twitter that may never come. I've been covering web site and shop builder Moonfruit for longer than I care to remember (they launched in 2000), but along the way husband and wife team Joe and Wendy White kept on pushing the company until it was one of the most innovative of its kind out there. Today that hard work is rewarded in Moonfruit's acquisition by directories giant Yell for $29 million (£18m) in cash. Unusually for a UK acquisition announcement, Yell has also made the golden hand-cuffs explicit for the founders. Retention bonuses of £5.2m (£2.7m grossed up) will be paid to Moonfruit's executive management team of Joe White, Eirik Pettersen and Wendy Tan-White after two years, provided that they remain exclusively employed by Yell.Twilio Calling: Cloud Telephony Startup Adds An Android SDK, Now Works On 75% Of All Smartphones
May 16, 4:00AM
Cloud-based telephony API startup Twilio has made significant inroads into VoIP and other carrier services like SMS by launching products that work on the web and in iOS apps, supporting 30,000 developers in the process. Today it's widening that net considerably with the launch of a new Android client, the first SDK from the company to work on Google's platform. And it hints that Windows Phone may be next in line. Considering that Android is currently the most popular smartphone platform globally, this potentially gives Twilio a much bigger opportunity to deliver services to the wider smartphone market -- with Android and iOS together accounting for 75 percent of the existing smartphone market, according to Gartner.Ultra-Targeted Advertising: Man Uses Pandora For Marriage Proposal
May 16, 3:00AM
When I was younger, my parents liked to listen to the big soft rock stations in Los Angeles. Once in a while, the sappy love songs would be interrupted by an emotional song dedication from a boy/girlfriend to their significant other. It was awkward, but also kind of beautiful. But mostly awkward. Now it sounds like Pandora has made an impressive gesture toward keeping that tradition alive, while also demonstrating the power of its ad targeting.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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