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AppFog Wants To Do For Developer Platforms What Google Did For EMail
Jul 26, 4:08AM
AppFog is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider that wants to do for developer platforms what Google did for GMail. GMail launched in 2004 by giving its users a distributed service with 2 gigabytes (GB) of free disc space. Search made it possible. It disrupted competitors like Hotmail that provided a measly 2 mb of free space.With 50M Videos Indexed, Showyou Relaunches Its iPhone App With A New Back End And Easier Sharing
Jul 26, 4:00AM
When the Showyou app first launched last spring, it was a bit of a revelation. The iPad app made discovering and watching videos on the iPad a breeze. And oh, are there plenty of videos to check out. With major partnerships at a number of the major video sites -- like YouTube and Vimeo -- it's indexed more than 50 million online videos to choose from. But while Showyou is best known for its iPad app, it's come out with a totally revamped app for the iPhone that it hopes will help people find and share interesting videos on the go. The use case for the iPad and iPhone are clearly different, and that's reflected in the engagement numbers: Showyou users on the iPad watch about seven or eight videos a session, which can average up to 35 or 40 minutes a piece. These people are watching during primetime hours, maybe in bed as a way to decompress at the end of the day. But iPhone users are typically video "snackers" -- they watch three or four videos at a time by comparison, and their viewing sessions tend to be spread more evenly throughout the day.Ellen! Bieber! Seacrest! Stamped Revamps, Raises New Round From Celebs, Brian Lee, Tom Conrad, Eric Schmidt & Others
Jul 26, 3:59AM
Stamped, the ex-Googler backed startup for sharing your favorite things, is rolling out a major revamp of its product today, and is adding a buzz-worthy lineup of new strategic investors, including celebrities like Justin Bieber, Ellen Degeneres, Ryan Seacrest, NBA all-star Baron Davis, Bieber's manager Scooter Braun, as well as media companies The New York Times Co. and Columbia Records. Also going in on the round are notable tech industry names like Google Chairman Eric Schmidt (via TomorrowVentures), Brian Lee of ShoeDazzle, LegalZoom, and The Honest Company, Pandora CTO Tom Conrad (his first investment), CrunchFund, and Metamorphic Ventures. Not surprisingly, current investors Bain Capital Ventures and Google Ventures also participated, bringing the company's total raise to date to $3 million. But while the celebs will bring new eyes to the service, it's the app's redesign that will be the big draw once the celebrity shine wears off.FundersClub Wants To Bypass VC And Let YOU Invest In Startups
Jul 26, 3:49AM
FundersClub is going to change how companies get funded. Today it launches a website designed to let anyone with as little as $1000 make equity investments in startups and earn money if they succeed. For now you have to be an accredited investor with a net worth over $1 million or yearly earnings over $200,000 to use FundersClub. But an industry source familiar with the Y Combinator startup gave me an exclusive rundown of its whole roadmap, including that if the JOBS Act goes into effect or FundersClub pays to set up a mutual fund, literally anyone will be allowed to use it to invest and profit if a startup successfully exits. Put simply, FundersClub could utterly disrupt venture capital, democratize investment in private companies, and ensure any founder has easy access to enough funding to pursue a great idea.Path Debuts Version 2.5: Bigger Photos And Videos, Book And Movie Sharing, New 'Nudge' Feature
Jul 26, 3:30AM
Path, the mobile-based social networking app aimed at helping people connect with their close circle of friends and family, is rolling out the latest update to its app: Path Version 2.5. The update, which will roll out tonight to the 17 languages Path supports on its iPhone and Android apps, doesn't have any groundbreaking new features, but there are some very clever incremental updates. It comes just as Path's new user growth is booming, CEO Dave Morin told me in an interview this week.With $1M+ From Guitar Hero Co-founder & Others, Zipongo Is Building The Mint.com For Healthy Living
Jul 26, 2:36AM
Jason Langheier founded Zipongo in June 2011 to give families and parents an easier way to make healthier dietary choices by reducing the costs that so often get in the way. Through a web-based health community and iPhone app, Zipongo essentially combines the best of Mint.com and Groupon to create a service that gives users their own personalized wellness plans (and the ability to manage them), while offering discounts at the grocery stores they shop at the most. To help it gear up for a full-scale launch later this summer (Zipongo is currently in private beta), the startup recently closed a round of seed capital ($1M+) from a flock of superangels and healthcare, tech and food marketing veterans. Those names include Flickr and Hunch co-founder Caterina Fake via Founder Collective, Wireless Generation co-founder and CEO Larry Berger, Peter Dolan, the Director of The Partnership for a Healthy America (and former CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb) and Guitar Hero and Blue Goji co-founder Kai Huang -- to name a few.Greek Athlete Kicked Off Olympic Team For Tweet
Jul 26, 2:26AM
Voula Papachristou, Greece's triple-jump champion, was barred from competing in the London Olympic Games by the Hellenic Olympic Committee after an offensive tweet on Monday. She tweeted, "with so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitos will be eating food from their own home."Flurry Acquires Startup Trestle To Power AppCloud, Its New Mobile Backend Service
Jul 26, 2:00AM
Flurry just announced that it's getting into the mobile app infrastructure business with a new service called Flurry AppCloud. To make that happen, the company acquired a mobile startup called Trestle. The terms of the deal aren't being disclosed, but Flurry's vice president of marketing Peter Farago says "all Trestle employees happily stayed on and form the core team driving Flurry AppCloud forward."Oracle Pulls Ads After National Advertising Group Says It Made False Claims Against IBM
Jul 26, 1:02AM
Oracle is stopping a marketing campaign attacking IBM in wake of a national advertising board's recomendation that the company made false claims when comparing its Exadata technology to competing IBM products. It's the second time in four months the National Advertising Division (NAD) has taken action against Oracle for making false claims when comparing its Exadata products to IBM's technology. The NAD is an advertising industry group that falls under the umbrella of the Better Business Bureau.Students Show Off Their Solutions To World Problems At Google Science Fair
Jul 26, 12:29AM
What were you doing when you were 14? I'm willing to be it's a little different that what the students at the Google Science Fair are working on. Google brought 15 of the smartest 13 - 18 year old students from all over the world together, each working on a unique solution to a very big problem. One story in particular comes out of Africa, where two 14 year old boys are providing hydroponic farming methods to extremely poor cities.Causes and "Not For Sale" Crowdfund REBBL Beverage Startup That Fights Slavery
Jul 26, 12:16AM
30 million slaves in the world need help, but startups are more sustainable than charities. So rather than raise donations, Causes.com is crowdfunding anti-slavery group Not For Sale's new beverage startup REBBL. The company will employ freed slaves in the Amazon, and reinvest proceeds into projects that combat human trafficking. Two weeks in, REBBL is half way to its goal of raising $150,000 in a month, and today the first bottles of Organic REBBL Hibiscus Mint Tea are coming off the production line. If it can raise another $75,000 in the next 13 days, REBBL will prove that crowdfunding can launch not-for-profit startups, and remake the concept of charity for the digital age.Court Grants Injunction Against Caterina Fake's Use Of The Name 'Pinwheel'
Jul 25, 11:39PM
It looks like Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake may have to find a new name for her new product Pinwheel. A New York court has granted a preliminary injunction against Fake's startup 2bkco, which was requested by a startup called Pinweel. (When you look at the name, I think you can see where the conflict comes in.) The injunction was posted on Scribd by lawyer and blogger Venkat Balasubramani, and I've embedded it below. Fake sent me an email confirming its accuracy, though she declined to say what the company's response will be, because "we can't comment on pending legal matters." The Pinweel team sent a similarly terse statement, saying, "We can confirm that the federal court has issued a preliminary injunction that requires that Caterina Fake's company immediately cease their use of the Pinwheel name."Facebook Designers Ask "What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid"
Jul 25, 10:45PM
What would you do if you weren't afraid? That's the question Facebook designers Ben Barry and Rasmus Andersson are asking on a poster-creation site that went live today. They are encouraging people to go on the site, create a digital poster and "tell the world."Path's Dave Morin And Benchmark Capital's Matt Cohler Will Join Us At Disrupt SF!
Jul 25, 10:39PM
Well, the agenda for TechCrunch Disrupt SF is shaping up nicely, really nicely. And today we've got another two Valley thought leaders we'd like to announce: Path's Dave Morin and Benchmark Capital's Matt Cohler will be taking the stage in September to impart their perspectives on the state of the tech now. Morin and Cohler will join our all-star speaker list which now includes: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Disrupt veteran Ron Conway, CEO of salesforce.com Marc Benioff, Ben Horowitz, founder of Khosla Ventures Vinod Khosla, Joel Klein, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and The Honest Company's Jessica Alba and Brian Lee.Cool: Google Glasses-Inspired Eyewear Translates Foreign Language Into Real-Life Subtitles
Jul 25, 10:22PM
Here's an innovative, simple, and exciting application to Google Glasses: foreign language augmented reality that translates text like real-life subtitles. Technology MacGyver Will Powell assembled a working concept of the product from a list of consumer electronics, and demonstrated it in a video of himself in conversation with his sister. Check out the video below. We've also pasted his description of the convoluted process the product takes to translate, below the video.Zynga's Explains "Challenging" Q2: Facebook Platform Changes, Late Launches, Draw Something Drops
Jul 25, 10:04PM
Why did Zynga generate revenue of $332 million versus the analyst-projected $344 million, earning 3 cents per share instead of 5 (and sending the stock off 40% in after-hour trading)? Three big factors, the company said today on the earnings call, in the following order: Facebook platform changes, game launches late in the quarter, and Draw Something's weakening mobile traffic. Facebook began emphasizing new games in its news feed, notifications, bookmarks and other communication channels at the expense of existing games, chief operating officer John Schappert said. This sent existing games down 15% across the platform (not just Zynga games) and live-action genre games down 34%. Because so many users engaged less often, they bought fewer virtual goods, driving down gross bookings by 9% for the quarter.Welcome Glass Explorers: Google Will Host Special Events & Hangouts For Those With Project Glass Pre-Orders
Jul 25, 10:01PM
Google's Project Glass made quite a splash at I/O last month. Besides stunning the audience with a skydiving demo of Glass, Google also allowed those developers who attended the company's annual developer conference to exclusively pre-order the $1,500 Google Glass Explorer Edition. These first alpha versions of Glass are only scheduled to ship early next year, but according to an email the Project Glass team just sent to everybody who pre-ordered the devices, the company plans to involve this early tester community before the devices ship as well. Google, the email says, will post exclusive content for those with pre-orders on Google+ and also invite them to special events and Google+ Hangouts with the Glass Team.Zynga's Mark Pincus: Real-Money Gambling Coming (Outside The US) In First Half Of 2013
Jul 25, 9:37PM
Real-money gaming (i.e., online gambling) could provide a big boost to Zynga's faltering bottom line, and the company has talked about making a move into that market in the past. Today CEO Mark Pincus offered a timetable, of sorts — subject to licensing approvals, he said we should see Zynga's first products in this field in the first half of 2013. "What we've said, and what we have to announce today, is that we have our first products in development and that we intend to release them in markets that are regulated and open, subject to our getting licensing," said Pincus, who was speaking on the analyst conference call discussing Zynga's disappointing second quarter earnings. Those markets don't include the United States: "The US is obviously an attractive market, but it's not an open, regulated environment today."Roku CEO Defends International App Takedown, Says More Content Is Available Thanks To DISH Exclusive
Jul 25, 9:23PM
Last month, Roku sent an email out to its developers, telling them that an exclusive deal with DISH meant it would be taking down independent apps for international content. With the launch of the satellite provider's DISHWorld international channels, which are available for $19.99 a month, some 25 apps were taken off the Roku Channel Store. While a number of Roku developers are upset with the takedown and have begun questioning the open nature of the platform, Roku CEO Anthony Wood said the decision will mean more, and higher-quality content available to users through the DISHWorld channel. "In general, we still want Roku to be a super-open platform," Wood told me by phone today. But he said that in the case of international content, he said Dish is the largest provider of those channels both by satellite and, with its over-the-top channels on Roku, online.SocialTables Is An Event Planning App For The True Social Butterfly
Jul 25, 9:02PM
If you've ever had to think about whether Uncle Phil (the one with the ear hair) should be sitting next to Aunt Clara (the one with the walker) or with the other guys at Frank's table ("Drunk" Frank), SocialTables has you covered. The site, recently relaunched with an entirely new UI and design, allows party planners to create mockups of their space, plop guests at different tables, and then organize the whole party via an iPad in real time. Never again will you have to cut out little circles and put little scraps of paper on the dining room table with each guest's name: this thing can do it for you. The platform is built in HTML5, which makes it easy to use in the browser, and the system pulls social data from each guest in the guest list, allowing party planners to seat like-minded people together or, barring that, create a little frisson by sticking cat lovers with stoat fans. It's completely collaborative and non-linear so multiple users can work on the same floorplan.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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