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500Friends Predicts And Rewards Big Retailers' Most Valuable Customers
Jul 06, 3:01AM
Not all customers are created equal — that's the idea behind a new product from Y Combinator-backed loyalty startup 500Friends. The company already allowed businesses to reward customers for activity like referring friends, writing reviews, checking in on Foursquare, and so on. Recently, however, it released an enterprise product that does a lot more.Ridejoy Will Roll Out Drivers' License Verification, Re-Launch 'BurningManRides' On Tuesday
Jul 06, 2:27AM
Seeking to stand out in a crowded field of questionably differentiable ride-sharing companies, Ridejoy will release digital identification verification for driver's licenses and passports on Tuesday. They will also offer optional background checks and re-launch BurningManRides.com. "Safety is the biggest concern people have about ridesharing and collaborative consumption in general, and seeing that someone's ID is on file and matched with the other info we have is a huge reassurance," co-founder Kalvin Wang tells us. Ridejoy's current safety procedures rely mainly on users' vetting each other through social networks, using Facebook authentication, user reviews and references and a safety checklist sent to users. Starting Tuesday, users can put their driver's license or passport in front of a webcam; Ridejoy will then check the identification information against the information the user has provided when joining Ridejoy. Wang said most users--he estimated 80%--sign up for the service by connecting through Facebook.Big Data Startup Clustrix Raises $6.75 Million From Sequoia And Others To Build Scalable Databases
Jul 06, 1:27AM
Big data is becoming big business. Pretty much everyone is chasing after the opportunity to take a shit-ton of unstructured data, and well, structure it. That means taking huge databases and making them searchable. Which is exactly the business that Clustrix is in. The company was founded in 2005 and about two years ago, it launched a proprietary database appliance that provides SQL database functionality at like, limitless scale. Now with its product mature and the market wide open, Clustrix has raised $6.75 million from existing investors Sequoia Capital, USVP, and ATA Ventures. Robin Purohit, who took over as president and CEO of the company last October, tells me that it's a round of convertible debt being used as a bridge to an upcoming Series C round.Nielsen: Digital Music Sales Up 14% So Far This Year, On Pace To Set New Sales Record
Jul 05, 11:55PM
Nielsen today announced its 2012 mid-year SoundScan numbers for the U.S. and the trends look pretty familiar: digital album sales were up 14% compared to the same time period last year and digital track sales were up 6%. Overall, music sales were up 6%, though overall album sales were down a little bit (-0.6%), as the sales numbers of physical CDs continues to drop. Still, Nielsen says CD album sales still accounted for 61% of all album sales in the last six months. That's down from 66% last year, but still higher than most of us who live in the digital world would expect.Fab.com For The Mass Market: NoMoreRack Sees $46M In 2012 Revenue With No Outside Funding
Jul 05, 11:43PM
While many flash sales sites focus on luxury products and/or fashion, NYC-based startup NoMoreRack is finding success by bringing consumers the stuff they need in everyday life at significantly-reduced prices -- by focusing on variety and affordability. Co-founder Melina Ash tells us that she envisions the startup as a mass market version of the uber popular Fab.com -- a Walmart of flash sales -- with a little TJ Maxx and Target to boot. Launched initially in Vancouver, NoMoreRack has flown under the radar compared to others in the space, even though it's sneaking up on the bigs. Today, in just 18 months, the startup has grown to a team of 30, with 4.5 million subscribers, 25 million page views per month, and is selling 8,000 items a day -- and 5 items per minute. What's more, in the first two quarters of 2012, NoMoreRack did $46 million in revenue, and Ash tells us that they're projecting to do $100 million in revenue this year. Not bad for a startup that hasn't taken a penny in outside funding.Seedrs Goes Live To Help Crowdfund The Gap In Idea-Stage Investing
Jul 05, 11:02PM
Seed funding is difficult to raise in Europe. Often, very difficult. Though some might say that it should be when a company is only at the idea stage. But that's a view that is in stark contrast with Silicon Valley, which is a constant complaint aired by the European entrepreneurs that I talk to. However, the situation in the UK at least could be about to get a whole lot better with the launch of Seedrs, a platform that aims to crowdfund the gap in "idea-stage" investing by making it easy for anybody to invest from £10 and £150,000 per-startup in return for actual equity. Three years in the making, its opening with full regulatory approval -- an achievement that rightfully gained the startup many plaudits as it was crowned winner of the recent London Web Summit.Index Shows iOS Programming Language Now In Top 3 As Mobile Development Booms
Jul 05, 10:15PM
For the first time in years. Objective-C is now more popular than C++, showing proof that mobile development is surging ahead as we enter the post-PC era. Objective-C is the object oriented programming language used by developers for iOS. It had its start in 1983. the same year C++ was created. C++ proved far more popular over the years. But in 1988, Steve Jobs changed the course of Objective-C's future when he licensed it for NeXT. It had less than 1% market share until 2009 when iOS development really started to take off.Y Combinator-Backed Delight.io Lets Developers See What Beta Users Are Really Doing In Their Apps
Jul 05, 10:10PM
Good developers are constantly trying to get feedback on the user experience and navigation of their apps, in an effort to improve them before launch. But few tools exist right now that allow them to do so, outside of just watching beta users over their shoulders to see how they interact with apps. Delight.io was launched to solve that problem. By just adding a single line of code to their iOS apps, developers can now record users sessions in video, and see how users interact with the touch screen while controlling those apps. That will allow developers in turn to improve the user experience, streamline navigation, and eliminate confusing controls.Tapjoy Looks Beyond Gaming, Brings Virtual Rewards To Popcornflix
Jul 05, 8:29PM
Tapjoy is best known as a monetization service for mobile games, but the company is working to expand into other industries. Case in point — a just-announced partnership with movie-streaming site Popcornflix. Owned by Screen Media Ventures, Popcornflix allows its website visitors to watch movies (mostly independent titles that I haven't heard of) for free. With the planned launch pf an Android app called Popxornflix Gold, Popcornflix viewers will be able to watch movies on their phones, but they'll have to spend Popcornflix Points to access the content. And to earn those points, they'll have to interact with advertising.Olympus Yells "Me Too!" With The MEG4.0 Wearable Display Prototype
Jul 05, 8:28PM
Watch out, Google. Here comes Olympus with the MEG4.0 and don't dismiss this as a Google Glass knockoff. Olympus has been researching and developing wearable displays for more than 20 years. The MEG4.0 concept, and with that, its eventual production counterpart, has been a long time coming and could be a serious competitor in the space.Apple Responds To And Fixes App Crashing Issues, DRM Software To Blame
Jul 05, 7:30PM
Just a quick update on the issues plaguing Apple's iOS and Mac App Stores: Apple has now informed developers that it's aware of the problem and is working on a resolution. For background, a serious problem has been discovered in the iOS and Mac App Stores which has been causing apps to immediately crash after users update to the most recent version. This is now day three of the problem, and Apple had yet to respond to the situation until this afternoon.Southern Start-Ups: Tomorrow We're Coming To Savannah!
Jul 05, 7:18PM
Here we go: tomorrow we're heading to the offices of Creative Coast, 15 West York Street for our first ever Savannah meet-up. We expect a few hundred folks to roll out and we'll have some excellent food sent over by Erwoods.com and MyApply.com. We're excited to see what Savannah has to offer. You can RSVP here. Special thanks to The Creative Coast for hosting the event. The Creative Coast is a non-profit organization supported by The City of Savannah and SEDA. We exist to nurture the members of our community engaged in creative or innovative endeavors and to cultivate an environment in which they can thrive.
Rails Machine is a full-service web operations and hosting company. We're a small team of experienced, dedicated, and focused people who have a genuine interest in technology and enjoy working with and giving back to the Ruby on Rails community. We founded Rails Machine in 2006 to create the ultimate hosting environment for Rails applications.See you tomorrow!
Facebook's Doug Purdy And Mike Schroepfer To Join Us At This Year's CrunchUp
Jul 05, 7:16PM
Summer is here and our annual CrunchUp mini-conference is just a month away. The focus this year is on Facebook, its developer ecosystem, and how it is adapting its product and business to a mobile-first world. And we're excited to announce two speakers who will be joining us from Facebook. The first is Doug Purdy. He's in the middle of the action on the product side these days. As a director of product management, he leads development of the Facebook Platform including the Open Graph, Games & Payments, and the overall developer experience. Also joining us will be Mike Schroepfer, Vice President of Engineering at Facebook, where he leads a group of engineers that write code serving hundreds of millions of people each day.Rocket Launch Numbers – Bridge Signs Up 1,000 Developers for Messaging Platform in First Day
Jul 05, 6:59PM
These are numbers any startup would love to post. In its first day, Bridge signed up 1,000 developers. In the span of one week the messaging platform has delivered more than 60 million messages. It has had more than 500 server downloads. In January, the startup previously known as Floytpe, announced it had raised $1.4 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners, Yuri Milner, Salesforce, and Y Combinator. Flotype was part of Y Combinator's Winter 2011 class.ZipList's Web Clipper Turns Pinterest Recipes Into Shopping Lists
Jul 05, 6:50PM
ZipList, the shopping list startup nabbed by Condé Nast in April for a reported $14 million, has just added a nifty little tool that makes the "inspirational" imagery found on Pinterest a bit more practical. If you cook and you like pinning stuff, then you'll like this,too. The company has introduced a web browser button that, when clicked, adds the ingredients from a recipe on Pinterest to your current shopping list, which you can view on your phone while at the store. OK, that's kind of handy.Samsung's New Galaxy S III Combines LTE And Quad-Core Processor
Jul 05, 6:09PM
There's an argument to be made that Samsung's Galaxy S III is the best Android phone on the market today, but that doesn't mean that its formula can't be improved upon. Case in point: now the Galaxy S III has wormed its way around the globe, Samsung is preparing to launch a version of its flagship handset that outshines the both the international and U.S. models, thanks to some craftily combined hardware.Mint Competitor HelloWallet Brings Its Personal Finance Service To Android
Jul 05, 6:04PM
HelloWallet, the self-described Mint competitor which closed a $12 million Series B earlier this year, is now bringing its personal finance service to a second mobile platform: Android. Previously, available for web and iOS, the Android app will deliver the same sort of features iPhone users have access to, including budget details and the ability to view your cash balance, as well as HelloWallet's unique location-based spending guidance.Y Combinator-Backed LeanMarket Aims To Bring Real-Time Bidding To The Masses
Jul 05, 5:52PM
"Real-time bidding" (where advertisers automatically bid on each ad impression) is a phrase that you hear more and more in the online ad world, but LeanMarket founder Cyrus Lohrasbpour says it's still out-of-reach for smaller companies. Most RTB products are really built for large advertisers — they come with long-term commitments and high minimum ad buys, and to use them you have to negotiate with enterprise salespeople. Lohrasbpour is looking to change that with his new startup, which offers a self-serve platform for real-time bidding. There are other self-serve options out there (for example, Engage:BDR launched one in May), but Lohrasbpour claims to be the first that's "really lightweight and easy-to-use" while also getting the technology right. LeanMarket advertisers don't have to deal with any salespeople, there's no long-term commitment, and they can just pay by credit card.FairPlay DRM May Be To Blame For Widespread iOS & Mac App Crashes
Jul 05, 4:16PM
Developers are frustrated over what appears to be an issue with corrupt app store binaries being served by Apple, which is leading otherwise functional iOS and Mac applications to immediately crash upon launch. The issue was tipped to us by app developers and has also been making the rounds thanks to details shared by high-profile app developer Marco Arment of Instapaper.Is This A Thing? A Business Man Carries iPad In His Pants Through Grand Central Station
Jul 05, 2:38PM
Every morning, my lovely girlfriend walks through Grand Central Station in New York City on her way to work, and every morning, she sees something odd. Such is the nature of living in the Big Apple. This happened: she saw a man — a regular dude in slacks and a button-down — carrying his iPad in his butt. Witness the horror.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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