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Ron Conway: The Painting
Dec 15, 7:39AM
Ron Conway, Silicon Valley’s best known angel investor, got quite a gift this evening. Laurene Jobs, the wife of the late Steve Jobs, dropped by the Conway annual holiday party this evening and unveiled what I can only describe as an epic painting of the man. It was hung on the wall and just about everyone in attendance took a picture. The painting is based on a photo taken of Ron and his dog Coco for a Fortune article earlier this year. I tried to steal it because I thought the painting really should be up at the CrunchFund offices (as a conversation piece). Security suggested that was a bad idea. The party was significantly less festive than previous years because of the horrendous shootings in Connecticut earlier today. Conway’s toast was mostly about the families affected. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was at the party – Conway rightfully called her an American hero.Open Source Software: Compliance Basics And Best Practices
Dec 15, 5:00AM
Editor's note: Heather Meeker is a shareholder, and chair of the IP/IT Licensing and Transactions Group in the international law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP. Startups stand on the shoulders of giants, developing proprietary applications on top of a software landscape that heavily leverages open source components. But as the saying goes, free software is not free, and using open source software requires that organizations understand the legal framework of open source.Digital Sports Report: Perform Overtakes ESPN In Online Video Viewership, Reaching 24.5M Uniques In November
Dec 15, 4:32AM
Sports is in the process of becoming the next big market to be transformed by the digital revolution, as fans are increasingly turning to mobile devices and second, third and fourth screens to consume sports content. In August, Turner bought sports blogging and content platform Bleacher Report for an estimated $200. More recently, Yahoo and NBC forged a digital sports partnership in the hopes of becoming the largest sports web property in the U.S., and permanently stealing that spot from ESPN.The Weekly Good: Twitter Gives Back With #Tweet4Good, Here's The Behind The Scenes Look
Dec 15, 3:52AM
[Note: This is a weekly series. If your company is doing something amazing to help a charitable cause or doing some good in your community, please reach out.] Before we start with this week’s edition of “The Weekly Good”, I want to let everyone know that our thoughts are with those who are affected by the horrific events in Connecticut today. We are all human, and doing damage like this to one another must stop. There are good things going on in the world, and it’s important to highlight those things. When tech companies deploy their efforts and resources for good, it hits me, for reasons. Twitter is doing something really awesome, called #Tweet4Good. For every tweet using the #Tweet4Good hashtag, Twitter will give $1 to in ads on the platform to the Red Cross. Up to $20,000. You have until 12/31 to get your tweets in. We spoke to Claire Diaz-Ortiz, who leads social innovation at Twitter, and she told us all about the initiative: ——— TechCrunch: How did you come up with the idea for #tweet4good? Claire Diaz-Ortiz: The #Tweet4Good initiative was the brainchild of our Sales Marketing Team as a way to bring our advertisers and users together to engage around a critical non-profit and to support them with a donation in Twitter Ads for Good, our pro-bono ad program. In Dec 2011 we renamed our pro-bono advertising program as Twitter Ads for Good. To help promote the program, we ran a holiday campaign for our advertisers that invited them to choose from five different charities for a donation in Twitter Ads for Good that Twitter would make on their behalf. This year we wanted to evolve that idea and bring it to Twitter to invite our advertisers to participate and engage with the program on our platform. The goal is to involve people in the campaign to help us reach our $20,000 goal as way to generate more awareness for the @RedCross by Tweeting with the hashtag #Tweet4Good. TechCrunch: How do you usually work with nonprofits for good using ad units? Claire Diaz-Ortiz: The Twitter for Nonprofits program gives benefits to any non-profit who applies. The Twitter Ads for Good program, which has been in existence since the day we first launched our very first ad product back in April of 2010, now gives nearly a million dollars in pro-bono ads to non-profit organizations each year.YouTube's Biggest Overhaul Of Its Data API Yet Adds Universal Search, Efficiency, And Lets 3rd Party Tools Post To Subscribers
Dec 15, 1:58AM
YouTube first launched its Data API back in 2007, and it has since become the video giant's most popular API in terms of request volume. Today, YouTube announced that it has officially opened version 3.0 of its API to all developers. The new APIs bring a number of important changes to bear on its current feature set, including client library support, improved tooling, reference documentation and integration with Google's API infrastructure. It's also now officially using JSON instead of XML encoding for, as YouTube says, "greater efficiency" and now only returns what you ask for.MyFitnessPal Gets More Social With Facebook And Address Book Integration
Dec 15, 1:56AM
MyFitnessPal, which allows users to track and share their exercise and nutrition, is rolling out an update that should make it easier to find your friends on the service. Connecting with friends was an important feature on MyFitnessPal before, but until now, you had to know their email address or user name. With this update, you can log in with Facebook and connect with your Facebook friends, or invite your Facebook friends to join the service. You can also look up users from your smartphone address book. If, on the other hand, you're not interested in sharing your weight and other fitness info with your Facebook friends, you have the option of keeping your profile private.Google Updates Homepage With Vigil Candle For Victims Of School Shooting
Dec 15, 1:29AM
In a show of solidarity with those grieving tonight over a school shooting in Connecticut, Google placed a subtle vigil candle below its search box. Google's graceful, yet poignant gesture speaks the uniqueness of this particular tragedy. Earlier today, a scores of citizens flooded the White House's official online petition website, WeThePeople, calling for "immediate" gun control reform, in what could be the fastest petition ever for the site. And, before that, a clip of a tearful Obama speaking about the incident went viral on the web. More and more unprecedented signs on the web reveal a nation uniquely scared by the young victims of Sandy Hook Elementary.Rally.org Powers A Donation Drive With Prizes To Spend Time With Silicon Valley's Top Angels, VCs
Dec 15, 12:09AM
Rally.org, a social fundraising startup that even partially raised its Series A round through its own platform, is putting together a charity campaign on behalf of San Francisco's Glide Church that awards time with Silicon Valley super-angels like Ron Conway, Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss. Glide, a San Francisco institution that's one of the city's best-known churches, is launching online campaign that will give 10 people the chance to meet with Floodgate's Mike Maples, Google Ventures' Kevin Rose, Eric Ries, Four-Hour Work Week author Tim Ferriss, and Relay Ventures partner John Occhipinti.Ray Kurzweil Joins Google In Full-Time Engineering Director Role; Will Focus On Machine Learning, Language Processing
Dec 14, 11:48PM
Famed inventor, entrepreneur, and futurist Ray Kurzweil announced this afternoon that he has been hired by search engine giant Google as a director of engineering focused on machine learning and language processing. He starts this upcoming Monday, according to a report issued on his website. 25,000 People (And Counting) Flood White House With Online Petition To 'Immediately Address' Gun Control
Dec 14, 10:44PM
Almost immediately following the tragic school shooting in Connecticut, over 16,000 people have signed an official White House WeThePeople petition to "Immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress." Signatures seem to be increasing rapidly in speed, in what could be the fastest petition in the site's history.AngelList Raising A Big Round, To Be Valued at $150 Million Or More
Dec 14, 10:30PM
AngelList, a service that matches early stage startups with investors, is raising a big round of financing at a valuation that multiple sources say will top $150 million. Investors may include Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, among others, say our sources. This will be the company's first outside financing.Chitika: iOS 6 Adoption After Google Maps Release Sees 0.2% Increase, Impact Of Apple Maps Likely Exaggerated
Dec 14, 9:52PM
Many, including us, thought that the introduction of Google Maps might lead to a rapid uptake in iOS 6 adoption, the idea being that many were holding out in order to keep Google's offering as the default on their iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. But Chitika, a mobile ad network that regularly tracks iOS adoption rates based on devices accessing apps using its platform, has found negligible impact on how many users have upgraded a day and a half after the Google Maps release.Jason Calacanis Says He Will Shut Down Podcast Network ThisWeekIn.com, This Week In Startups Will Continue
Dec 14, 9:44PM
Jason Calacanis has announced via blog post that he's planning to wind down his podcast network ThisWeekIn.com and return the remaining funds to investors. Two of the shows, This Week In Startups (which Calacanis hosts) and Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, will continue, but the company itself is shutting down. Calacanis wrote that ThisWeekIn wasn't a failure, just "a moderate success" that "would not be able to scale." Here's his argument about why a podcasting company is unlikely to make big money:Dropbox For iOS Updated With New Photo Gallery And Design
Dec 14, 9:16PM
Following October's update of its Android application, Dropbox today released a new version of its iOS app, which focuses on refining the photo-viewing and sharing experience. In today's update, there's now a new Photos tab, which offers a way to tap into a scrollable timeline of the photos you've uploaded into your Dropbox account.Google Does Winter Cleaning, Shuts Down "Less Popular" Calendar Features, Punchd Loyalty App, Multiple Sync Services
Dec 14, 8:18PM
Google likes to make sweeping changes in bulk, getting rid of features that it thinks don't really matter. Why don't they matter? Its users tell them so by not using them. In a "Winter Cleaning", there were some minor cuts, as well as a somewhat major one -- the shutdown of Punchd, its loyalty card app and service. Merchants must not have been getting quite the bang for their bucks by integrating it into their offerings.iPhone 5 Sales In China Reportedly "Robust," Despite Lack Of Lineups
Dec 14, 7:47PM
Apple's iPhone 5 is a "hit" according to English-language Chinese newspaper Shanghai Daily, despite the fact that there were not huge lineups or riots in the streets as there were on iPhone 4S launch day. That's because most of the new phones were sold at China Unicom and China Telecom stores, the newspaper reports, rather than at Apple's three Shanghai stores. In Shanghai alone, the newspaper puts first day sales at around 20,000 iPhone 5s through brick and mortar retail.Kids App Maker Toca Boca Passes 22 Million Downloads, Expands To Android With Kindle Fire Debut
Dec 14, 7:00PM
If you've never heard of Toca Boca, then you must not have kids. The studio behind a series of popular children's applications for iOS (iPhone and iPad) has just passed 22 million downloads across its portfolio of now 16 applications, and is today expanding to Android, starting with support for the Kindle Fire. More Android releases are planned for early next year, the company says.One Dev, At Least, Is Doing Great On Windows 8
Dec 14, 6:56PM
Patrick Husting runs a small development shop, ExtendedResults where he sells a product called PUSHBI, a mobile business intelligence app. While the app was popular on iOS and Android, he found some interesting results when he moved it onto Windows 8 - his sales, once flat on Windows, went up to the tune of 2,500 downloads in the last few weeks. He admits it's not a huge sample size but it's some interesting data coming out of a fairly obscure part of the app ecosystem which suggests that, at least for some people, Windows 8 means increased revenue.Aviary CEO Says Its Company Goal Is To "Democratize Creativity," And It's Clearly Working
Dec 14, 6:36PM
It’s been launch city for a few big companies and new startups this week. Who’s had the very best week, possibly? That would be Aviary, a company that started out with a direct-to-consumer product that allowed people to beautify and share their photos. The company decided to switch gears and provide its tools to other apps and sites. Some people call it a pivot, but that word can be annoying. It was a pretty smart move, as Aviary now powers editing and filters for both Flickr’s brand-new iOS app and Twitter’s recent refresh. By focusing on editing photos and adding filters, the company can build great things that can be used by anyone who would like its feature set in their own app. I spoke with Aviary’s CEO and co-founder Avi Muchnick, whose name is all over this company, about what’s been going on. ——— TechCrunch: How did the relationship with Flickr get started? Avi Muchnick: We have known the folks at Flickr for a few years and have a great relationship with them, so they are familiar with our solutions. We first officially partnered with them by powering photo editing on Flickr.com in April earlier this year, and that integration was quite successful for everyone involved. So we worked with them again to power the photo editor in their new mobile app. TechCrunch: As a company, what are your goals? Avi Muchnick: Our mission is to democratize creativity. We want everyone in the world to feel artistic, no matter their skill level or talents. We’re going to accomplish that by providing our photo-editing SDK to every single app where people use photos to express themselves. TechCrunch: What things are coming along that are new? Will partners integrate them? Avi Muchnick: Unfortunately we can’t share the specifics about what’s coming up next but we are always working on innovative new features to take photos to the next level. We always develop new features with our partners’ needs in mind. We test out all new features in our showcase app (Photo Editor by Aviary), which gives partners a chance to see our full feature set, so they can decide which elements they would like to adopt. TechCrunch: Do you have fans and users who respect your “behind-the-scenes” nature? Avi Muchnick: Yes. We actually used to have a web-based creative suite which millions of people loved to use, and we were reallyMobile First Or Mobile Worst?
Dec 14, 6:34PM
We happen to live in a massive time of transition. The PC market that has dominated computing for the past few decades is decaying while mobile computing is soaring — with the only limit in sight being the total number of people on the planet. As a result, startups have been gradually shifting their focus from web-first to mobile-first. It's the reason why I stay up late at night writing posts simply repeating "mobile" hundreds of times. Mobile is clearly the future, but is it the present? At first, Vibhu Norby, co-founder of Origami Labs thought so. But after a tough time gaining traction with their first mobile product, Everyme, he re-thought that position as he laid out in a post entitled: Why We're Pivoting from Mobile-first to Web-first.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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