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Viralheat: Our Sentiment API Is Getting 300M Calls Per Week
Jun 19, 11:41PM
Viralheat is probably best-known for its social media analytics and publishing tools, but it also offers some free APIs. And at least one of those APIs, the one that analyzes sentiment, is taking off, according to CEO Raj Kadam.Recruiting Startup Interview Street Holds "Summer Games" For College Students
Jun 19, 11:14PM
Recruiting startup Interview Street is making a move onto college campuses (virtually speaking). The company helps employers recruit programmers by holding online coding contests to test their skills. Right now, co-founder Vivek Ravisankar says the average CodeSprint coder has between zero and 3.5 years of work experience — in other words, they're pretty fresh out of college. Still, a lot of recruiting starts even earlier. So why not try to find the most talented programmers while they're still in school?Mobile Ads Are An Ugly Nightmare. 955 Dreams…Of A World Where They're Beautiful
Jun 19, 10:38PM
"I don't want to talk about whether ads are good or bad. I just want to make good ads. Good for apps, good for users." That's from Kiran Belubbi, founder and CEO of 955 Dreams which today added the most gorgeous mobile ads I've ever seen to its app Band Of The Day. Now the startup is working on a licensable ad platform so other apps can replace obtrusive, overlaid, "still loading" ads with glossy, full-screen interstitials that can actually complement their experiences. As web-first services stumble into smaller screens and non-game app developers struggle to pull in revenue, 955 Dreams might have the answer to mobile monetization woes: Art.With Simplified Profiles, Twitter Makes It Easier To Browse Celebrity Accounts
Jun 19, 10:35PM
Every once in a while, I'll stumble on the Twitter account of a celebrity I admire. Once I get past my moment of "OMG, it's Neil Gaiman!" (or whoever), I try to browse their tweets. Sometimes, the browsing ends with, "Awesome! Follow!" Other times, I'm left thinking, "God, I have no idea what's going," because their tweet stream is dominated by incomprehensible conversations with people I don't know or care about.A Redesigned, Slicker PayPal Is Coming Tomorrow; Some Seeing New Look Today
Jun 19, 9:45PM
PayPal, the eBay-owned online payments service that is making significant inroads into mobile, is giving its website an overhaul to make it easier for its 100 million+ users to pay and get paid, find help, and potentially start using some of the newer services that PayPal is pushing hard to grow. The redesign also happens to look a lot more touch-friendly -- perhaps a sign of how much tablets, smartphones and the mobile web figure today in the company's strategy. Some users are starting to see the new look already, and one of them, a TechCrunch reader, sent some screenshots our way. A PayPal spokesperson confirmed that these are indeed shots of the new site, and that it is planning to announce the changes officially tomorrow, and presumably turn them on for the rest of its user base.The Oatmeal To Charles Carreon: "Come Back When You've Calmed Down"
Jun 19, 9:30PM
The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman wrote an open letter to the lawyer who has been harassing him for most of two weeks, Charles Carreon. Carreon just sued Inman as well as the World Wildlife Foundation and the American Cancer Society. You can see some background here but this is all as crazy as it sounds. I'll avoid giving much context because Inman deserves a break and Carreon seems so oddly earnest and naive that it is worthless judging either party.Formspring Relaunches As An Interest-Based Social Network
Jun 19, 9:00PM
Q&A site Formspring is today announcing what the company says is its biggest news since its original launch back in 2009. Yes, Formspring has been overhauled. The company is shifting its focus from social Q&A, to a site that's more focused on conversations built around interests. To complement this change, Formspring is also rolling out a completely redesigned website to highlight the company's new direction. A mobile web version will soon follow.TC Mini-Meet Up: We'll See You At 6pm In The Field House In Downtown Philadelphia
Jun 19, 8:49PM
After a late start we arrived in Philly and talked to a number of cool folks at Office Hours. Now it's time to party. Josh Zelman, Jordan Crook, Chris Velazco, and myself will be at the Field House at 6pm and we're ready to talk startups, tech, and all things in between. We're excited to head out to the city of brotherly love and we're also excited to announce a new sponsor, Uber, who is offering a special gift to our Philly readers. Uber would like to help you get to and from the event so if you enter the coupon code TechCrunchPhilly before requesting a ride you'll get 20% off of 2 trips.Game Shows And Office Hours: Google Launches Developers Live To Extend I/O Year-Round
Jun 19, 8:45PM
Next week, Google is holding its annual I/O developers conference in San Francisco, but that's apparently not stopping the company from making some developer-focused announcements now. With Google Developers Live, which is launching today, the company plans to "bring you the excitement of Google I/O year-round." As Louis Gray, a program manager on Google's developer relations team notes (and here we thought he was working on Google+), Google plans to use this new site to "feature live, interactive broadcasts ranging from developer-focused game shows to Office Hours where you can connect with the engineers who created and work on your favorite Google product."Facebook Adds Subscription Billing For App Developers, Backs Away From Credits As Primary Currency
Jun 19, 8:30PM
Facebook is adding subscription billing for app developers, in what should help gaming and media companies earn more revenue from their most loyal users. Starting next month, developers will be able to offer premium plans or special content from a monthly fee. Facebook is keeping the same 30-70 percent revenue share that it has with in-app purchases. The company hinted in its road show video that it might lower its 30 percent take for other verticals, but it hasn't officially announced plans to do so. The lowest price point a developer can set for a monthly subscription is $1. The other thing that Facebook is changing is that it's backing away from having Facebook Credits be the primary way items are priced.Google Launches Custom Themes For Gmail, Lets You Choose Your Own Background Photos
Jun 19, 7:13PM
For a while now, Gmail users have been able to choose between various themes to personalize their inboxes. Starting today, you will be able to add even more of a personal touch to Gmail, as Google now allows you to set your own background images in Gmail. Google actually offered a similar option for Gmail before it launched its redesign last year, but this time around, Google - of course - also offers a deeper Google+ integration and allows you to upload your own photos directly or select your backgrounds from your Google+ photos.General Assembly Expands In New York, Has Sights Set On Educating The World
Jun 19, 7:00PM
New York is an interesting place for startups. Not because they're technologically driven or that they're chasing after the Valley but because New York has something to offer everyone. It's a town filled with over eight million people across every industry known to man. And it's in that spirit that General Assembly has grown over the last year and morphed into what it is today, an education driven startup looking to impact the local startup community and help them grow. Having outgrown the previous space at 902 Broadway, which is sandwiched between the Flatiron and Union Square, the team at GA has moved up the block to a larger campus at 915 Broadway. (902 will remain open for classes and shared workspaces.) The new space is 12,000 square feet with five classrooms, a dedicated event space and studio space for students to work on projects. It even includes wooden bleachers for students to interact. (Unfortunately, you won't be able to sneak underneath to smoke your pack of Marlboro Reds.)Google Finally Launches A Native iPhone App For Google Offers
Jun 19, 6:22PM
Google today launched a native iPhone version of its Google Offers app. Unsurprisingly, the app is very similar to the Google Offers Android app, which the company launched last November. With the new app, Google Offers users in the U.S. will be able to buy deals right from the app and find nearby deals while they are on the go. They can also use deals they have already bought right from their iPhone without having to print their coupons. Google, of course, always offered a mobile web version of Google Offers, but using the native app is significantly faster and also offers a number of new features.After Printing Over 1M 3D Objects, Shapeways Raises $6.2M Round Led By Lux Capital
Jun 19, 5:55PM
3D printing company Shapeways today announced that it has raised a $6.2 million Series B funding round led by New York-based Lux Capital, with participation by existing investors Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures. Shapeways also announced that it has now printed over 1 million 3D objects and currently powers over 6,000 shops on its platform. The service now has over 150,000 members (up from about 100,000 last November) who can upload and print their own 3D creations through the site and sell them to other users.Keen On… Vibhu Norby: Why Privacy Is Better And How It Defines EveryMe [TCTV]
Jun 19, 5:36PM
If 2012 turns out to be the year when the online privacy sector really takes off, then the "private social network", EveryMe is likely to become one of the big new stories in Silicon Valley. Formed a year ago in Menlo Park out of the Y Combinator stable, EveryMe now boasts $1.5 million in start-up capital and over 500,000 users of its "circles" (heard that one before, eh?) product which is available as both Android and iPhone apps. As co-founder Vibhu Norby told me when he came into our San Francisco studio, EveryMe was originally founded as an address book company but "pivoted" to a private social network when it became obvious that the world was "waking up" to the problems of online privacy."We do not sell data to advertisers," Norby told me.You can't get any more explicit than that.Vungle Creates $1M Fund To Lure Top Mobile Developers To Its New App Promotion Platform
Jun 19, 5:30PM
Vungle is all about taking a unique and aggressive approach to promotion. After reading TechCrunch's post about AngelPad, Co-founders Zain Jaffer and Jack Smith bought targeted search and Facebook ads to reach the accelerator's founder Thomas Korte and his friends. The ads said they had an urgent message for the founder and included a link to their pitch for Vungle. And it worked ... they got in. At AngelPad, the co-founders went on to use their unique (spammy) promotional techniques on investors. That, too, worked out. Last month, Vungle closed a $2 million seed round from an all-star cast of investors. Naturally, the startup is now at it again, announcing today that it will be using its funding to launch a $1 million fund to woo developers to its "new mobile ad unit."LocalResponse: Our Ad Network Has 7 Billion Impressions Per Month And Is Almost Profitable
Jun 19, 5:12PM
LocalResponse, a network that targets ads based on social network data (such as check ins), is sharing some news about its growth. The big number: It says it's serving more than 7 billion impressions per month. To be clear, it isn't actually filling all of that inventory, or even close to 100 percent, as CEO and co-founder Nihal Mehta admits. However, he says that if LocalResponse could fill even half of it, say at a $6 CPM (the rate for each thousand impressions), it would still be a big business.JustAnswer Becomes Pearl.com, Raises $25 Million Series A
Jun 19, 4:55PM
Eight-year old JustAnswer.com, which bills itself as a Quora competitor (but looked decidedly less hip), is announcing a rebranding and a new infusion of capital today. The site is becoming Pearl.com, which offers a new front-end to its Q&A service which is now focused on connecting site visitors with vetted professionals. Users will be able to ask questions aimed directly at those who work in particular industries - e.g., you can ask a doctor, a mechanic, a I.T. professional, a lawyer, etc. - for help. In addition, the company is announcing it has closed a $25 million Series A round of funding, which includes investors Charles Schwab (the man himself) and Glynn Capital. Schwab has also joined the company's board.Crushpath Gets $2M To Help Salespeople Seal The Deal: Charles River Ventures And More Are Backing
Jun 19, 4:54PM
With all of the M&A activity going down with CRM leviathans Oracle and Salesforce, a timely launch from a new startup looking to disrupt the sales process once again. Crushpath, founded by former executives from Jive Software and Socialcast, is offering a platform for salespeople to control a deal from lead to close, with social elements added into the mix, and it has closed a $2 million round of seed funding led by Charles River Ventures to do it. Other investors include Chamath Social + Capital Partnership, the former VP of Facebook, Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez, Jive CEO Dave Hersh and Box's CEO Aaron Levie. Phil Libin, the CEO of Evernote, is also joining Crushpath's board of advisors. And as part of Levie's and Libin's involvement, Crushpath is also announcing partnerships with the two services.Amiando Founder Departs After Earn-Out, As Eventbrite Eyes-Up European Growth
Jun 19, 4:21PM
Well, that's that. Prominent German entrepreneur Felix Haas, who started ticketing company Amiando and sold it to XING (Germany's LinkedIn), has finished his earn-out period and is, as the phrase goes, out of here. Speaking exclusively to TechCrunch from Le Web London, he said "I'm going to fly planes for a bit. Then I'll decide what to do." (Haas flies light aircraft for fun). In his stead comes Norbert Stockman, a seasoned manager in the ticketing industry, who becomes the new MD, and Julian de Grahl, currently a VP at XING. Haas leaves in September with the other founders Dennis von Ferenczy, Sebastian Bärhold and Armin Bauer also off to "seek new challenges."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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