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Now In 600+ Schools And Open To Any Student, Lore Gives Higher Ed A Next-Gen Social Network
Sep 01, 5:55AM
With social networking having permeated the way we look for jobs, share photos and music, and discover news, a startup named Lore is on a mission to do the same for higher education, and potentially re-shape the way teachers and students communicate. Formerly known as CourseKit, the Thiel and Founder's Fund-backed startup is doing that with a platform that is part Facebook and part Blackboard -- for courses. In other words, Lore aims to act as a replacement for the infamous course management system with a gradebook, calendar and document uploading (for class assignments), while giving students a social network-style newsfeed for classroom conversations. However, until now, Lore has been primarily focused on creating functional communities around courses, and students could only join Lore if a teacher invited them. While courses are remaining the central axis of the network, the startup has launched "Lore For Students," which now lets students join themselves and create academic profiles, follow classmates and professors and join groups (like study sessions or clubs).Anticipating a Blended Classroom Boom Led by Education Startups
Sep 01, 5:00AM
As kids head back to school this month and next, some will find a rather new arrangement greeting them: blended classrooms. These don't feel like the ways that many of us attended class, with a single teacher lecturing at students from front and center ("Bueller?"). As it's difficult--if not impossible--for cash-strapped schools to develop their own original learning products in house, startups are at the forefront of these changes. Thanks to many of them, more instruction is now being simultaneously delivered--by a live teacher, via web-based curricula, and in the form of students teaching one another, among other forms--within the walls of traditional classrooms.Open Source in Action: LinuxCon 2012
Sep 01, 4:49AM
I participated in a panel discussion at LinuxCon today with other journalists who cover Linux and open source goings-on, including our own Alex Williams. One of the questions that was asked was "What was the most important story for you this week?" The answers from my peer journalists were interesting, and reflect the diversity in interest (and beats) between us all. From Google's admission to using -- and paying for support for -- Ubuntu on the desktop, to Linus's revelation of a Linux 4.0 release within the next couple of years, the things that piqued our various interests covered the spectrum of what happened this week. When the question was posed to me, my immediate response was "The Hallway track".Kippt, Pinboard Help Digg Users Find New Home For Old Data [Here's How]
Sep 01, 1:58AM
After Digg's long fall, Betaworks acquired the site in July and put its News.me team in charge. Six weeks later, the new operators launched a complete overhaul of Digg. However, while interest in Digg had remained (a surprising amount, according to new CEO John Borthwick), the new site removed user access to old data, i.e. everything Digg users had ever posted to the old iterations of the site, Diggs, comments, articles, etc. Yesterday, the team rectified that and actually seems to have gone beyond what is usually characteristic for new management or a deadpooled/acquired startup to do in terms of access to historic data. They launched the "Digg Archive," which gives users of the old site (i.e. before July 2012) a tool to retrieve their submissions, saved articles, and more (by JSON and CSV) and by partnering with Kippt and Pinboard to give old data a new home.Hey Vendors — It's Too Early For An API Death Match
Sep 01, 12:18AM
I am not one to argue with abundance. I am a big believer in the way we can create so much, all the time. But I can't stand an abundance of vendor one-upmanship and that's just what I heard this morning at CloudOpen in a panel discussion about Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) v. Platform as a Service (PaaS).YC-Backed Private Photo-Sharing App Everyme Raises $2.15M From Tencent And Others
Aug 31, 11:48PM
So you've got your photos on Facebook, and you've got them on Instagram, and on Path. But what about that stuff that you don't want everyone to see? Just some people? That's what group photo-sharing app Everyme is for. And it's just raised an additional $2.15 million to get more people using it. Everyme is Y Combinator-backed mobile startup that allows users to create groups for private photo sharing. The startup launched its iPhone app in April, and followed that up with an Android app and Instagram integration a month later. CEO Oliver Cameron confirmed that Everyme has raised an additional $2.15 million in a Series A round led by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, with participation from its existing angel investors.biNu Socializes Its Feature Phone App Platform
Aug 31, 10:59PM
biNu, a startup backed by Eric Schmidt's TomorrowVentures, allows owners of feature phones and lower-end smartphones to access apps like Facebook and Twitter. Now the company is getting more ambitious on the social networking side. CEO Gour Lentell tells me that it wasn't really his plan to build a social network. Instead, biNu focused initially on making content accessible — whether it's Wikipedia, the Bible, or a news site like TechCrunch. But users wanted to share and interact around the content, so biNu has been slowly adding social features over time, until the team realized that it was becoming "fully social," Lentell says. A few weeks ago, the company launched its own social app on biNu home screen, and next week, it's adding the last big piece, a news stream where you can follow updates from other users.Disrupt Startup Alley & Pavilions: Sold Out!
Aug 31, 10:17PM
TechCrunch Disrupt is now one week away. We are excited to say that Startup Alley is now SOLD OUT. We have over 200 early stage companies joining us over two days on Monday and Tuesday. Thirty five percent of these companies are joining us from outside of the U.S. On Monday and Tuesday, the audience votes for their "Audience Choice Winner" among all of the Startup Alley companies demoing on that day. The audience favorite receives the last spot to compete on the TechCrunch Disrupt stage as one of that day's Battlefield contestants, and if chosen, will be eligible to compete in the Battlefield Finals for the $50,000 grand prize and coveted Disrupt Cup.500 Startups Accelerator Alum Tiny Review Becomes Tiny Post, Adds New Fonts And Filters
Aug 31, 9:20PM
TinyReview was one of TechCrunch's favorite startups from the third 500 Startups Accelerator class that graduated in February. Then it was touted as an "Instagram for Reviews," allowing users to easily add text to images, and then link them to certain locations. Users could also share those photos out to various social networks, like Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. But a funny thing happened: The founding team realized that their users weren't just posting reviews -- they were using the app to add funny text to their pictures, which may or may not have been linked to a location or business, and create memes out of them. So the startup pivoted a little bit to go after that use case, and re-branded as TinyPost.With Google Fiber Sign-Ups Behind Schedule, Google Lowers Pre-Registration Thresholds
Aug 31, 9:09PM
A few days ago, Google's gigabit Fiber project in Kansas City had only reached its sign-up goals in about 50% of the city's "fiberhoods" and a number of areas were still very far away from reaching the threshold for getting Google Fiber's Internet and TV service installed in their neighborhoods. Today, the company announced that it has revisited its pre-registration goals.Gillmor Gang Live 08.31.12 (TCTV)
Aug 31, 8:02PM
Gillmor Gang - John Taschek, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recording has concluded.Cinemagraphs (Animated Gifs) As Ads? Tumblr Experiments With New Advertising Format
Aug 31, 7:34PM
GIF, a filetype that celebrated its 25th anniversary this past June (don't you feel old now?), won't die. And the animated GIF, in particular, has seen a notable resurgence recently, as a newer, younger group of netizens rediscover its capabilities, posting GIFs to social networks, blogs and in fashion editorials. "Cinemagraph"-making apps became trendy, and Tumblr posts filled with animated GIFs ranging from the artsy to the humorous. But animated GIFs aren't just for fun anymore - Tumblr has turned them into a money-making tool. Yesterday, the company ran a sponsored animated GIF in its Tumblr Radar section, and not surprisingly, it was for fashion brand Calvin Klein. Yes, you read that right: cinemagraphs (animated GIFs), are Tumblr ads now.The Value Of Your iPhone Drops Every Second, So Try This
Aug 31, 7:23PM
The value of your current iPhone is going down as I write this very sentence. And according to Gazelle, current iPhone models traditionally depreciate about 25 percent a couple weeks before the next generation iPhone is unveiled. And guess what? The new iPhone is about two weeks away. As Rafiki would say in the Lion King, "it is time." But what do you do?SEC's Proposed Rule on General Solicitation Reads, "Sorry…Please Hold… It's Too Complicated for Us"
Aug 31, 7:05PM
Editor's note: Jason Best and Sherwood Neiss led the U.S. fight to legalize debt and equity based crowdfunding, co-authored Crowdfund Investing for Dummies and foundedCrowdfund Capital Advisors where they provide strategy and technology services those seeking to benefit from crowdfund investing. Hopes for startup crowfunding will have to wait for the federal bureaucracy to give it their stamp of approval: earlier this week the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) came out with a draft version of what they have in mind. Oddly enough, it doesn't say much other than proceed with caution. Now the public has 30 days to comment before the SEC takes all those comments together to come out with the law. Coming out with a draft puts a hold on the ability of scrappy innovators to collect funding from their friends and family, further delays the ability of our nation's entrepreneurs to innovate and create jobs and adds more confusion to laws that were meant to ease regulations. The result of this action will increase capital flows to securities attorneys and NOT entrepreneurs.Open Compute Project: Can Facebook Help Save The World?
Aug 31, 6:33PM
Hardware generally doesn't interest me too much, so when I heard about the Open Compute project I didn't give it too much attention. Casually reading up on the subject a little more left me even less interested. Why should Facebook have to design their own hardware, I wondered? Wouldn't hardware vendors be clambering over each other to supply Facebook with gobs and gobs of servers for their data centers? Amir Michael, Facebook's hardware lead, discussed the Open Compute project in a keynote presentation at LinuxCon. He laid out the root problem: hardware manufacturers, in an effort to provide differentiation, were actually creating more problems than they were solving. The on-system instrumentation that OEMs provide did for Facebook but create additional complexity, and ultimately wasted space and produced unnecessary heating concerns.Lifestyle Web Publisher Zimbio Becomes Livingly Media
Aug 31, 6:17PM
Zimbio, which publishes the celebrity news website of the same name, just announced that it has renamed itself Livingly Media. It's a logical change for the company as it expands beyond Zimbio.com, which was its first property, and which still accounts for the majority of its traffic. Founded in 2006, Livingly (a cross between "living" and "lovingly") launched the fashion site StyleBistro.com in 2010, and it recently acquired home decor publication Lonny Magazine.Serendip Helps You Discover Music And DJ Friends By Creating A Playlist Shared By Your Friends
Aug 31, 6:10PM
When it comes to music discovery, technology and the Internet opened a lot of possibilities. Yet, and this is what Serendip is all about, music curation by your friends or knowledgeable people are frequently much more valuable than what you could get from an automated service. Today, Serendip is launching out of private beta and is now available for everyone. The service aggregates all the songs that your friends share on Twitter and Facebook and arrange them in a playlist. Then, it includes some songs by users who liked the same artists as you or your friends.Facebook Stock Hits A New Low, Now Down More Than 50% Since IPO
Aug 31, 6:08PM
Facebook's stock just hit a new low and has now lost more than 50% of its value since the social network's IPO in May. This new record low comes after analyst firm BMO Capital Markets cut its price estimate on the company's shares from $25 to $15 today. Research firm eMarketer also just announced that it expects Facebook's revenue for this year will remain under the company's previous estimates. eMarkteter now predicts that Facebook's ad revenue will reach $4.23 billion for 2012. That's up 34% from 2011, but eMarkter previously estimated that Facebook could reach ad revenues of up to $5 billion this year.Keen On… Danny Sullivan: Why We May No Longer Be Able To Trust Google [TCTV]
Aug 31, 5:42PM
My own criticism about Google's bias are well known. But I'm far from alone in worrying that Google's increasing investment in online content brings into question the supposed objectivity of their search engine. One notable search engine guru who has expressed his discomfort with Google's new role as a media company is Danny Sullivan, the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. Earlier this week, Sullivan wrote a controversial piece arguing that Google is shifting from a search engine to a content destination. And as he told me when I caught up with him on Skype, Google now "deserves criticism" for the way in which it is muddying the supposed objectivity of its search engine. It's the issue of "trust" that most concerns Sullivan about Google's investment in content businesses like Zagat and Frommer's, he says. And this is only going to increase in the future, Sullivan predicts, with Google likely to make major investments in new content areas like finance and shopping.Mix-Up Or Must-Buy Phone? Motorola May Reveal Smartphone With Edge-To-Edge Screen Next Week
Aug 31, 5:30PM
Motorola is dead-set on showing off some new hardware at its New York press event next week, but could it have more up its sleeve than we all expected? A handful of leaks (accidental and otherwise) have already outed the Droid RAZR M and the long-awaited RAZR HD, but Bloomberg seems to have confirmed the existence of another new Motorola handset whose description doesn't seem to match up with anything I've seen recently.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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