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Airtime May Be Acquiring Former Hulu CTO's New Startup, Erly
May 23, 1:02AM
Rumors are flying that Airtime, the video startup founded by famed Napster alums Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, has allegedly made its first acquisition -- before truly exiting stealth mode. The target? Erly, the Kleiner Perkins-backed startup aimed at letting people create social experiences around their experiences.
Wall Street Survivor Gamifies Financial Education With Help From Bunchball
May 23, 12:00AM
If you're someone who thinks gamification is just a fad, you may want to look away now. To be clear, Bunchball isn't just jumping on the latest buzzword. The company was founded to deliver gamification tools all the way back in 2005 — founder and Chief Product Officer Rajat Paharia has told me that he probably came to the market too early, and has had to keep the company alive while the industry caught up. Now it's focused largely on enterprise customers who want to use game mechanics to turn employees into better workers.The 15 Startups That Launched At Disrupt NYC Day 2. Who's Your Favorite?
May 22, 10:37PM
Disrupt NYC day two has just wrapped up. During the conference today, Michael Arrington demanded to know from Ron Conway when he was going to run for Mayor of San Francisco (he kept saying he would "never"), our very own Josh Constine grilled Tim Armstrong with questions about AOL, layoffs, which publication he likes more: Huffington Post or TechCrunch (he said "both"), and we watched 15 more amazing startups battle it out for the ultimate Disrupt prize -- the Disrupt Cup and $50,000. Starting tomorrow at 3:30pm ET we will have our Startup Battlefield Disrupt finals. Yesterday, we wrote detailed articles with pictures and pitches from all of the startups who presented. Below are the ones who were featured today. Out of these 30 companies, both from yesterday and today, five will be chosen to fight it out for the ultimate prize. We will have an all-star panel of judges tomorrow for the finals and things will probably get intense; people always get a little crazy at the finals, but as you can imagine, it's a blast to watch. So, take your time in reviewing all of the stellar startups below. Compared to the brilliant ones yesterday, which startup do you think will make it to the finals? Going further, any guesses on who you think will win it all?Women At Kleiner Perkins: By The Numbers
May 22, 10:33PM
As TechCrunch was the first to report, Ellen Pao, a partner with Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, has filed a lawsuit alleging that during her seven year career there she has been the victim of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and acts of retaliation for rebuffing sexual advances and complaining about her experiences and the workplace environment. The whole affair is shocking for a lot of reasons, one of them being how it all seems so contrary to Kleiner Perkins' longtime reputation. Kleiner Perkins has had a sterling image for years, and it has actually become known for being especially female-friendly.Buyou Is A Free Online Mall Brought Straight To Your iPad
May 22, 10:21PM
Shopping on the iPad is becoming one of the best ways do shop. You're sitting on your couch, comfy as a bug in a rug, swiping through dresses, and t-shirts, and shoes! Oh my! But there's one issue: you have to switch between all the different brand apps to enjoy yourself. Sure, you can hit up the Saks 5th Ave app and view multiple brands at once, but those brands aren't offered the ability to reach out to you directly with their sales, content, and promotions. But that's why Buyou, the crowd favorite here at the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley (and thus one of our Battlefield members), has stepped onto the stage with its iPad app. It's a free online mall that aggregates various brands into one beautiful, easy to use interface.RocketFrog Wants To Build The Largest Social Casino On The Web, Myspace Tom Joins As Advisor
May 22, 10:14PM
Today brings another entrant into the social gambling space with RocketFrog, which is setting out to bring casino entertainment to Facebook with the launch of a free-to-play online casino that offers players the chance to win real prizes. Traditionally, online casino players participate in the casino gaming experience recreationally, with the rewards being the opportunity to socialize with friends or earn a few virtual badges. So, RocketFrog wants to change this by leveraging the Facebook platform -- where all of your friends are already -- to create social tournaments, where players can interact and compete against their friends to win real prizes, not just accumulate points on leaderboards or vie for meaningless status increases.Betaworks Acquires And Relaunches Hownow, The Semi-Anonymous Hyperlocal Social Network iPhone App
May 22, 10:09PM
On one end of the spectrum, networks like Twitter and Facebook have acted as catalysts to organizing events like the Arab Spring or the riots of London. On the other end of that spectrum, networks like Yelp or Foursquare tee up user generated reviews, tips and public-facing profiles. Somewhere in between all that falls hownow, an iPhone app-based social network that lets users publish messages semi-anonymously at a hyperlocal level.About Last Night Wants To Improve Your Nightlife By Making It Even More Social
May 22, 9:56PM
They say that all work and no play makes for some dull boys, and I think brothers Darren and Derek Dodge would definitely agree with that sentiment. The two of them have just launched a new iPhone app called About Last Night here on our Disrupt stage that aims to connect fans of the nightlife and help them find the best parties, clubs, concerts, and games every night. "We like to think of ourselves as a social network completely geared around nightlife," Darren told me.Ron Conway Will "Never" Run For Mayor Of San Francisco
May 22, 9:50PM
In case you were wondering: Ron Conway says he will not be running for mayor of San Francisco. Apparently that was on Mike Arrington's mind when he interviewed Conway and SV Angel partner David Lee on-stage at Disrupt today. He said he heard from more than one source that Conway is considering a run "somewhere down the line," and asked flat-out if that's true.SocialStock Wants To Turn Social Networking Into Real-World Rewards
May 22, 9:44PM
What good is a Foursquare check-in if it doesn't lead to a coupon or freebie? Why bother tweeting about a brand you like if they don't acknowledge your undying love and loyalty? With TechCrunch Disrupt finalist SocialStock, those types of actions may now be rewarded...or at least that's the company's vision. The service, founded by Subbu Rama, aims to be a stock market for people and places which assigns a point value to users' social networking actions. Mimicking the framework of a real stock market, those actions become shares and then those shares can turn into real-world rewards from participating business or brands.Hmmm Is A Split-Personality Social Network For Sharing Different Yous To Different Facebook Friends
May 22, 9:43PM
You're crazy with your friends, serious with your co-workers, and sweet with your parents. Now you can share those distinct personalities with their matching audiences thanks to Hmmm, a mobile app launching today that aims to let you be yourself online, whoever that is. Facebook friend lists and Google Circles have proven too clumsy for selective sharing. They've led to the rise of Path, which eliminates the decision making by creating a social micronetwork of your closest friends, but all your favorite people aren't there, and not every post is appropriate for everyone you love. Hmmm lets you create separate avatars for each of your identities, and publish to pre-made sets of Hmmm and Facebook friends. Plus, Hmmm will soon be able to notify a friend that says they're bored when you post that you want to see a movie. Sol Studios just launched Hmmm at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, with an iOS app available now and an Android version coming in two weeks.Startup Alley Day 2 — It's A Jungle Out There, But The Startups Keep Coming
May 22, 9:35PM
Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt makes for a pretty grueling experience when so many companies are pitching every passer-by. But Jordan Crook and I went in feet first to check out some of the startups there. In scenes more reminiscent of tag-team pro-wrestling, or perhaps a sort of Startup relay race, we tag-teamed around and interviewed a bunch of them including Jaxx, Screach, Fanitics, Edaman, SnapCrowd, ColourDNA, Atticous and BuzzCard. Check all of Tuesday’s startups out here. We also took a trip over to the Israeli Pavilion to check out the likes of Drippler and Vodio among others. Enjoy!SAP To Acquire Ariba For $4.3 Billion
May 22, 9:08PM
Business software giant SAP announced today that it will acquire Ariba's cloud -based business commerce network for approximately $4.3 billion. SAP's subsidiary, SAP America, Inc., is offering $45 per share for the platform, and plans to close the deal during the third quarter, pending Ariba shareholder approval of the sale. Ariba had 100.2 million shares on the market, as of March 31st, according to an AP report citing FactSet data.Ron Conway Makes It Clear That SV Angel Is David Lee's Fund (And It Might Be Raising Another $400M)
May 22, 9:05PM
Silicon Valley is full of unsung heroes: Mike Krieger, Arash Ferdowsi, interns, the TechCrunch sales team, Heather Harde and the countless engineers that keep the products we love from failing to be the products we love. One of these unsung heroes is SV Angel's David Lee, who has served as a mentor and sounding board for almost every smart person in the Valley as far as I can tell. But as of today Lee is a little more "sung"; In a discussion with Michael Arrington on stage at TC Disrupt New York, investor Ron Conway made it even more clear that SV Angel is actually managing partner David Lee's fund.Apptegic Uses Big Data Analysis To Help Companies Retain And Upsell Their Customers
May 22, 9:00PM
For SaaS companies, whose customers are usually signed up on recurring monthly billing cycles, the art of retaining customers is just as important as winning them over in the first place. In fact, it's probably more important, since customers aren't tied in to long-term deals. It's also a lot cheaper to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. So they need to better understand them and work harder to keep them coming back, which is where Apptegic comes in. The startup, which is being launched as part of TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield, uses big data to provide detailed analytics that companies can use to better engage with their customers. To do so, Apptegic is introducing what it calls a "customer guidance system" (CGS) to identify trends among customer usage and to give them tools to message users in real time and suggest new features that they can use.>From SF Disrupt To 500 Startups, CardFlick's Next Trick Is Managing Your Personal Connections
May 22, 9:00PM
The winner of the Audience Choice Award during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, CardFlick launched with an application for building digital business cards on your mobile device and sharing them with new contacts. Rather than bumping to share those cards, users "flick" them to other users who have downloaded the app. After that, the next step was refining things. To do that, CardFlick has joined the most recent 500 Startups Accelerator class and is working on the next big transition in its evolution. To start, it's adding more features and functionality around its core card product.Talkdesk Puts Your Company Call Center In The Cloud
May 22, 8:45PM
Most businesses need to be able keep in touch with their customers and provide customer service over the phone, but rolling out a call center can be expensive. Not just that, but most call center software today isn't very good at keeping tabs on customers and presenting all the information that businesses need to serve them better. That's why Talkdesk is launching its cloud-based call center software Tuesday as part of the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. The startup enables call agents to know everything about customers when they call, based on reverse lookup of the customer's phone number, without having to ask for their information. It also integrates with the existing CRM systems that companies use, such as SalesForce, as well as helpdesk software like ZenDesk and Desk.com. But it also hooks into Twitter and Facebook to find public information about customers from social networks.CAD Users Rejoice: Sunglass Brings Slick 3D Modeling To The Browser
May 22, 8:35PM
Software is eating another part of the world. (Or at least the next generation of software is eating the older 1970s-era kind.) Sunglass, which is coming out of beta today at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, should bring a bit of joy to longtime CAD users and professional architects and designers. The company is launching very social, browser-based software for 3D modeling. "This is like Google Docs for 3D objects," said CEO and co-founder Kaustuv DeBiswas. "We're taking traditional desktop software from the architecture world and putting it in the cloud." Sunglass is undercutting existing computer-aided design software dramatically. Normally, this older software can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000, he adds. In contrast, the most basic version of Sunglass is free and then designers can pay for extra apps or add ons.VisibleGains Launches Postwire At Disrupt, Aims To Be The Flipboard For Client Communication
May 22, 8:19PM
Email is broken. Social networks are not for private file distribution. Collaborative file sharing sites are missing pizzazz and key functions for the enterprise. This is the thought process behind Postwire by VisibleGains. The company explained to TechCrunch, "We want to do for client communication what Flipboard did for blog reading." By using a private sharing workspace, Postwire allows for both client collaboration and asset management in a visually smart way. They take shared videos, images and documents, arrange them on a grid layout similar to Pinterest, giving users within the shared group a compelling receptacle for these files. In short Postwire aims to be a landing page for shared files.Vinylmint Is A Jammin' New Way For Pro Musicians To Collaborate
May 22, 8:14PM
Vinylmint is a Norfolk-based startup that aims to assist musicians in creating their music. It's essentially a recording studio in the cloud. You record uncompressed audio right into the computer, the service uploads it to the cloud, and then you can listen to and edit tunes in your browser. Think of it as a mixing board with microphones all over the world.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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