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Facebook Quietly Launches Pages Manager iOS App, But You Probably Can't Use It Yet
May 17, 2:31PM
Carefully cultivating your Facebook presence can be tough enough when you only have your personal profile to deal with, but it's a completely different story when you've got a full-blown Page (or three) to manage on top of it. To help those particular users stay on top of things, Facebook has begun to roll out a new app (called, imaginatively enough, Pages Manager) in a small handful of markets, though we in the U.S. can't play with it just yet.Facebook's Prospects In Asia
May 17, 2:28PM
Facebook's IPO story is a lot about mobile, international growth and Asia. I am not Asian by birth but have been living there for a dozen years and researching key Asian markets since before Facebook was created. Here are my views on Facebook's prospects. >From Facebook's S-1 filing: "In countries such as Japan, Russia, and South Korea we estimate that we have penetration rates of less than 15%; and in China, where Facebook access is restricted, we have near 0% penetration" While that sounds like a lot of room for growth, let's look at the reality of it.Reuters Agrees: The Next iPhone Will Be Larger
May 17, 2:17PM
The Wall Street Journal made waves yesterday. Citing unnamed sources, the Journal reported Apple is ordering larger touchscreens for the next iPhone. Now, citing its own unnamed sources, Reuters somewhat confirmed the reported. Prepare yourself, iPhone diehards. All signs point to a larger iPhone. The thought of a larger iPhone clearly scares people. Read the comments on my post yesterday, "It's Time For A Larger iPhone." They say 3.5-inches is the best size. You don't have to move your thumb to navigate the whole screen, they say. A phone with a 3.5-inch screen fits in my hipster jeans! But really, the main underlying thread seems to be some people are afraid that, just perhaps, Apple will adopt something from Android like the trend of a larger screen. Scary, I know.Moglue Makes It Dead Simple For Anyone To Create And Publish Interactive Ebooks
May 17, 2:08PM
Creating and publishing content-rich, interactive ebooks without programming skills or distribution power: that's the problem New York- and Seoul-based startup Moglue is trying to solve. The TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing finalist offers two products: MoglueBuilder (a desktop app that makes it dead simple for authors and artists to create and publish interactive ebooks) and MoglueBooks (an ebook store on iOS for users who just want to browse and consume content). MoglueBuilder (download for Windows and Mac) has been in open beta for a few weeks and was downloaded by more than 20,000 creators worldwide so far, according to Moglue. With the new version that just launched, authors and artists can create interactive ebooks using a drag-and-drop-based UI and directly publish them to MoglueBooks to reach their audience - no programming required.>From TC50 Winners To A $7.4M Round And A Home Depot Acquisition, Redbeacon Tells All
May 17, 2:08PM
I've been on a journey through the past as Disrupt NYC (tickets here) draws closer, sifting through past Disrupt and TC50 startups with the hopes of getting a clear update on the accomplishments, the trials, and the milestones between then and now. The stories have been amazing, but one of the most incredible tales of growth and success I've yet to hear lies with Redbeacon. The company first won top prize at TC50 in 2009, and has since gone on to raise a $7.4 million round led by Mayfield Fund and Venrock (purely bootstrapped up until then), and ultimately found themselves in the midst of an acquisition by Home Depot. I spoke with co-founders Aaron Lee and Yaron Binur to hear the impressive tale straight from the horses' mouths.Buffer Acquires ShareFeed, Brings KISSmetrics CEO Hiten Shah On As Advisor
May 17, 2:07PM
Buffer, the little service for scheduling your social media updates, has some big news today: it's acquiring competitor ShareFeed, and is bringing its CEO Hiten Shah on board as a mentor and advisor. ShareFeed was launched in 2009 as a side project from Shah's company KISSmetrics, which is backed by True Ventures, SoftTech VC, Polaris Ventures, and other angels. Of ShareFeed's team of three, only Shah will be working with Buffer going forward, and will advise the company on how integrate some of the technology the ShareFeed had previously developed. While terms of the deal were not being disclosed, ShareFeed's main contribution to Buffer, outside of Shah's mentorship, appears to be the technology itself and the data the company had previously collected on social sharing.Netflix's Former Customers Are Returning After Rebranding Fiasco
May 17, 1:55PM
At a J.P Morgan conference held in Boston on Wednesday, Netflix CFO David Wells said that the company was looking up and, more importantly, customers who cancelled the service because of the Qwikster rebranding, plan repricing, and subsequent poor PR are now returning. The company drove users away due to a considerable price hike on its cheapest disk plan - from $9.99 to $15.98 - as well as its ham-handed decision to split the company into a streaming arm - Netflix - and a disk-in-the-mail arm - Qwikster. Wells said:Still Smiling, Eduardo? Senators Schumer, Casey Want To Collect Your $67M In Facebook Taxes Anyway
May 17, 12:28PM
Another development in the ongoing story of how Eduardo Saverin has given up his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying $67 million in taxes related to Facebook's IPO: the U.S. government doesn't want him get away with it quite so fast. Today, Senators Charles Schumer and Bob Casey are expected to announce a plan they have to re-impose the taxes on Saverin, part of a bigger scheme to go after expatriates who give up citizenship in order to avoid taxes. On top of that, they want to make it official that people who avoid paying their taxes by renouncing citizenship will be permanently denied re-entry into the U.S.The Weather Channel Beautifies And Socializes Its iPhone App
May 17, 12:00PM
In an effort to streamline its digital offerings, The Weather Channel has today announced that its popular iPhone app has undergone a major redesign. It started with the launch of the iPad app, and just a few weeks ago The Weather Channel followed suit on the web. But the iPhone marks a major portal between TWC and its consumers, in that mobile and weather undoubtedly go hand in hand. The redesign reminds me a bit of HTC's Sense 3, with the home screen offering up a weather-themed background based on the weather outside. The user interface seems much more navigable, but the features themselves are getting a bump as well.AppHarbor Launches Its Azure Competitor In Europe
May 17, 11:01AM
Heroku was a hit with Ruby developers because it was an easy-to-use development platform. Others have tried to do the same with other languages such as PHP Fog, dotCloud. Then last year AppHarbor, a 'Heroku for .NET' out of Y Combinator launched. And today AppHarbor has extended its service to European developers. EU applications will still run on Amazon's infrastructure, but they'll be running out of the EU-West region (Dublin) instead of US-East, where all current applications are located.Rakuten CEO On The $100M Pinterest Round: We Want Pinterest Users To Pin Images And Buy Using Our ID
May 17, 10:46AM
Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant leading a $100 million investment in Pinterest, will be making two major contributions to the image-based social network as it gears up for its next stage of growth: the funds to take the image-based social network into new international markets, and a business model. First up, Rakuten's home market of Japan, where "Pinterest is growing very fast," notes Rakuten's CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani, in an interview with TechCrunch. He wants Rakuten to grow right there with it by using Rakuten's services to become the basis for buying things off the site.Quora Investor Peter Thiel: "The Samwers Are Never Going To Clone Quora,"
May 17, 5:52AM
There's been a lot of armchair valuation punditry across the Valley this week. As the Facebook IPO looms, our intricately entwined ecosystem of startups and investors seeks to benefit from the domino effect of a population feeling flush with cash. This is the picture that the WSJ painted in its Quora funding announcement yesterday, headline: "Former Facebook Hands Capitalize on Buzz." Okay, sure, smart people will always adapt to a favorable environment -- but the WSJ missed a deeper and more long-term dynamic at play.Disney Video Launches In Beta, Bringing Kid-Friendly Clips And Trailers To All Your Devices
May 17, 1:48AM
There's a new product that just came out of Disney Labs -- a video portal for clips, movie trailers, and even a collection of curated YouTube videos, all designed to be watched online or on any of your mobile devices. The new Disney Video site, located at video.disney.com, combines the best of Disney past and present, with a whole lot of content that might not be found anywhere else. It's too early to know too much about the site -- we spotted after it was announced on Twitter by Henry Work, Senior Software Engineer for Disney Interactive Labs, and have a request out for more information. But at first glance, it seems like a pretty cool example of what a major media company can do with a huge library of content that it hopes to bring to multiple platforms and devices.Positionly Raises $300,000 For Search Engine Ranking From Point Nine, Others
May 17, 12:08AM
Search engine ranking startup Positionly has secured $300,000 seed funding from Berlin-based led by seed VC Point Nine Capital and joined by Angels Mariusz Gralewski and Michal Skrzynski.Palantir Technologies Nabs $56M In New Funding, SEC Filing Shows
May 16, 10:10PM
Palantir Technologies, the big data analysis company founded in 2004 by a team of ex-PayPal employees including Peter Thiel, has raised $56 million in new funding, according to a document filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is by no means Palantir's first go-round with venture capital investors. This is the company's 7th round of funding, according to our records.Sleepover Time! All-Night Hackathon Precedes Facebook IPO At Headquarters
May 16, 9:38PM
Carrying on in the esteemed tradition of Facebook hackathons, there will be an all-nighter at the company's Menlo Park headquarters that culminates with CEO Mark Zuckerberg ringing in the NASDAQ bell ahead of the company's much, much, much anticipated IPO. There is an internal event page for the big day that has about a thousand Facebook employees RSVP-ing for the bell ringing early on Friday morning. We can't tell if there are any other big festivities prepared ahead of time. It's all up in the air. Some people may dress up though. We don't know if the gong will be used. Zuck will probably give some remarks as he has ahead of other hackathons.How Personal Capital Wants To Bring Money Management Into The Internet Age [TCTV]
May 16, 8:50PM
Personal Capital, which launched last year, provides a suite of software aimed at helping people manage all their personal finances -- no matter where they are -- through one central suite of web and mobile apps. Earlier this month Personal Captial was named "Best In Show" at the FinovateSpring, a conference in San Francisco focused on all things financial and technology related, so it certainly seems to be onto something big. So when Personal Capital put out its first iPhone app last week, we asked CEO Bill Harris and product VP Jim Del Favero to stop by TechCrunch TV and give us a hands-on look at the service.Why The Internet Doesn't Make Us Care More About Politics
May 16, 8:30PM
American politics used to be fun: frequent political carnivals in the 19th century would mix parties, parades, and political speeches in an endless stream of local civic life. As a result, America had an astonishingly high turnout, between 70-90%, in presidential and local elections. Yet, the Internet has never quite captured the emotional gravity of real-life engagement, and keeps tripping up multi-million dollar campaigns designed to inject life into an otherwise passive electorate. For example, take two technology initiatives that were widely predicted to dramatically increase democratic engagement: Obama's 2008 campaign and Americans Elect. Despite the hype, Barack Obama's juggernaut of a online campaign only boosted youth turnout by a meager 2%.It's Time For A Larger iPhone
May 16, 8:27PM
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Apple is currently ordering larger screens for the next iPhone. With the usual nonsense, the WSJ cited people familiar with the matter and stated these screens measure at least 4-inches diagonally. Production is set to begin next month, they say. The Journal better be right, though. A 3.5-inch screen is just too small now. At this point to say anything to the contrary is pure fanboi nonsense. The standard argument that consumers don't want a large phone is tired and overused. Besides, it's effectively proven wrong by the 20 million Galaxy S II phones sold by Samsung last year. It's time for a larger iPhone.More Google+ In Gmail: Improved Circle Integration, Circle Search and Quick Access To Contact Details
May 16, 7:44PM
The folks over at Google just love their Google+ social network and more and more Google+ features have been creeping into Gmail lately as well. Today, Google is bringing even more of Google+ to its email client. With today's update, Google is especially focusing on adding a deeper integration with Google+ circles. You will now, for example, see profile photos from people in your circles when you select a circle in the left sidebar. You can click on those images to search for email from a specific contact. In addition, if you really take your Google+ circles seriously, you'll be happy to hear that you can now use circles as search filters in Gmail as well. Say you want to just see emails from your "friends" circle, you can just type circle:friends to find them.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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