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SocialSafe, The Social Media Back-Up Tool, Raises $400K To Out-Archive Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
Dec 24, 9:00AM
SocialSafe, the social media back-up tool co-founded by Julian Ranger's iBundle and 1minus1, has announced that it's raised £250,000 (~$400k) in what's being called a Series A round. That's because Ranger, who is a prominent angel investor in the UK, has already funded the startup to the tune of £300k, bringing the total raised by SocialSafe to £550k (~$885k).A Hackathon Ushers In A Holiday Version Of Changemakrs, The Platform For Inspirational Quotes
Dec 24, 6:42AM
Changemakrs, a platform for sharing inspiration built by an ex-Facebooker, is tapping into the Christmas spirit with a version of the site that lets anyone share holiday quotes. If you sign into the site, Changemakrs will automatically add holiday quotes to the homepage, using some natural-language processing algorithms that categorize the quotes. They also do quality filtering through internal user rankings. This holiday version of the site was hacked together in a few hours. The site has picked up holiday quotes from Bon Jovi, the movies “Miracle on 34th Street,” and “Elf,” and Charles Dickens. Changemakrs is a platform where anyone can post and share inspirational quotes. It was born out of some experimentation by a former Facebook business development manager Sacha Tueni and his co-founder Mathias Wagner. After working on a Twitter client (yes, a Twitter client) for a couple months, they built a tribute site to Steve Jobs that overlaid his best advice on top of stark, black-and-white photos of him. The barebones site quickly went viral, accumulating 3 million pageviews in about 48 hours. They then repeated that approach with many other famous figures like Albert Einstein and Lady Gaga, with similar results. They then turned it into an open site where anyone could share or accumulate bits and pieces of aspirational wisdom. The site came out of beta earlier this month. Yes, it is a bit of brain-dead, simple concept, and strangely, web-focused in a mobile-first world. But the team says that while there are plenty of quote sites across the web, these competitors are outdated with Craigslist-era design. Plus, they're not designed to be particularly social or viral. Tueni, who used to work at Facebook, has been involved in social change-oriented projects before. Before he joined Facebook, he built a mobile service that let Lebanese voters report election irregularities with their feature phones. Changemakrs is currently bootstrapped for now.Proposed Chinese Law May Force Sina Weibo To Implement Real-Name Registration
Dec 24, 5:35AM
Chinese economics magazine Caijing reported today (link via Google Translate) that the National People's Congress is considering a new law that would require Internet users who wish to register for services to use their real names. While the Chinese government says the legislation will "safeguard" Internet users from defamation, fraud and identity theft, service providers and many netizens have complained that the proposed regulations are yet another move by the Chinese government to restrict freedom of information.Internet Silence Speaks Louder Than Words
Dec 24, 5:00AM
Major websites around the web blacked out their homepages Friday at 9:30 a.m. in memoriam for the Sandy Hook massacre last week. In the cacophonous free-speech circus that is the Internet, where the knee-jerk reaction to all issues is to generate more words, the practice of forced silence sends a distinct signal of seriousness: sacrifice. In a blackout, we cannot advertise. We cannot promote our coveted views. We can only sit in deafening silence as our traffic flatlines. In exchange, we hope that readers will give a rare moment of undivided reflection.Food Discovery App Burpple Adds Photo-Editing With Six Filters
Dec 24, 4:42AM
Right on the heels of the kerfuffle over Instagram's privacy policy, food journaling and discovery app Burpple has released its new Burpple Camera, which features six filters (named Tapas, Loco Moco, Tiramisu, Teriyaki, Masala and Latte) specifically designed to enhance photos of food and a tilt-shift blur effect.Singapore-based Inventory Management Startup TradeGecko Rescues SMBs From Spreadsheet Hell
Dec 24, 3:28AM
Former designer Carl Thompson left the industry after years of wrangling with business administration spreadsheets, but hopes his startup TradeGecko will spare other small business owners from the same fate. Its cloud-based inventory and sales management application was developed to emphasize user experience with clean and intuitive data displays.Thanks To Free Shipping Offers, Online Holiday Sales Surge 16 Percent To $39B
Dec 24, 3:04AM
Holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 51 days of season is up 16 percent to $38.7 billion, according to comScore. This past week, which was the last full week consumers could order gifts online and receive them in time for Christmas, saw Free Shipping Day (Monday, Dec. 17) bring in $1.01 billion in spending. This past week brought in a whopping 53 percent increase in spending, thanks to free shipping offers.Cherry Is Shutting Down Its On-Demand Car Wash Service, Will Refund Pre-Paid Customers
Dec 24, 2:17AM
Cherry, a startup that has been described as "Uber for car washes," is shutting down its service as of today, according to a statement from the company. Cherry says that it plans to "pursue an exciting opportunity that emerged while running Cherry." It also claims to be exploring "alternate options for the Cherry car wash business," which allows smartphone users to order a car wash at their location. In the meantime, the company says that it will be refunding everyone who prepaid for a wash, and it will be working with Groupon and LivingSocial to do the same for customers who paid through those group-buying services.This DIY Mini-Tardis Is Bigger On The Inside
Dec 24, 2:00AM
If you've watched and enjoyed the program known as "The Good Doctor Who" in which an alien of some sort who flies around with his little, knobby robotic buddy (I'm not entirely clear on the details), you'll be pleased to note that one fan, our own former employee Greg Kumparak, has built a real Tardis police box which, using some digital trickery, is really bigger on the inside.
Short, Sweet And In Stealth Mode: Quip Is The Name Of Ex-Facebook CTO Bret Taylor's Next Project
Dec 24, 1:02AM
When Bret Taylor announced last June that he would be leaving his role as CTO of Facebook to work on a startup with another ex-Googler, Kevin Gibbs, little else was divulged about what that project would be – except, as he told AllThingsD, that it might cover an area he does not understand well as a consumer, a little like, you know, when he helped create Google Maps. Today, a little more news began to seep out: the startup appears to be called “Quip”; Taylor started to redirect his backchannel.org site to the quip.com domain, but with invitation-only, restricted access; and there is some quiet talent recruitment taking place. We heard about Quip earlier today, and while we were trying to get through to Taylor to ask more, it seems that Business Insider heard about it, too. Now Taylor has responded to us — essentially, to note that the buck stops here for now: “We aren’t releasing anything and aren’t yet talking about what we are working on,” he wrote in an email. “I will be happy to talk when we are, though.” And for good measure, he’s now closed that little backchannel.org loophole that redirects it to quip.com, and backchannel.org has been taken offline altogether. Before the quip.com redirect disappeared, a Google apps login screen noted that Quip requested permission to view your email address, view basic account information, and manage your contacts. But as we note above, access to this was restricted. BI notes some other details that it has found on quip.com: It appears the quip.com domain changed ownership December 7 of this year. Quip has quietly registered on Twitter. An iPad app by the same name was rebranded to Tweetglass back in July because a European entity was claiming trademark infringement. But as BI points out this might be unrelated to Quip.com. Quip’s icon is a Q with a pen for the tail and a paper for the main o-shape — possibility that this means some kind of creating/writing app. And here are the additional details I found: It appears that the Quip had a mini frenzy of activity this month. In addition to the domain switch, the @quip Twitter handle was only created on December 13. Between domain and Twitter registration, it seems that backchannel.org might have already started redirecting, attracting a little attention in the process. In addition to Bret Taylor and Kevin Gibbs, there is some impressiveNews Corp. Reports $2.1 Billion Loss From Publishing Arm
Dec 24, 1:00AM
News Corp's SEC filing during its attempts to split into two companies showed that the company lost $2.1 billion on the publishing side this year.How The Portland Trail Blazers Went Mobile
Dec 24, 12:00AM
It's almost 2013 and you'd think that at this point every NBA team has probably had its own official mobile app for a few years now, but that's not exactly the case. The Portland Trail Blazers, for example, just launched their own official mobile app for iOS in late November. Earlier this month, I sat down with Dan Harbison, the team's senior director of Interactive Media, to talk about how the Trail Blazers are using mobile to connect with their fans.Iterations: "A Warby Parker For [Blank]" And Consumer Product Reinvention
Dec 23, 11:00PM
A few years ago, when I was going back and forth to India for work, I'd routinely carry with me the eye prescriptions and a few old frames for some of my family members in the States. They didn't want to pay local prices in the States because they knew the deal back home -- for a small fraction of the cost, they could get their new prescriptions and probably a couple of spare pairs of glasses to boot. Warby Parker picked up on these gross inefficiencies by monitoring thousands of people like me. Much has been written about the company, so I won't rehash that here, but will point out a 60 Minutes segment earlier this year that featured a relatively unknown yet powerful company -- Luxottica -- which has a stranglehold on the supply of branded eyeglasses and retail stores and, as a result, enjoys near-monopoly status.CrunchWeek: The Big Instagram Backlash, Cash For Facebook Messages, Twitter Sprucing Up For An IPO
Dec 23, 8:00PM
There was certainly no pre-holiday slump when it came to tech news, so we had a lot to talk about in the latest CrunchWeek, that very special time of the week when a few of us gather in front of the TechCrunch TV cameras and dig into a few of the most interesting stories of the past few days.The 20 Best iOS And Android Apps Of 2012
Dec 23, 7:00PM
Editor's note: Brad Spirrison is the managing editor of mobile app discovery services Appolicious. Nearly six years after the debut of the iPhone, mobile applications are beginning to mature. The best mobile apps of 2012 - with a few notable exceptions - are more about refined practicality rather than anything revolutionary.Lightbank Aims To Change The VC Game As It Expands Its Investments Beyond Chicago
Dec 23, 5:00PM
There's a lot of talk about disruption in the venture capital world. We've discussed at length the shift that many VCs are making from simply writing a check to serving as a hands-on, end-to-end service driven by seasoned operators and former founders. Chicago-based Lightbank, the VC firm started by Groupon seed investors Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, have a similar approach but with one major difference: the firm's fund, which is around $200 million, is composed of mainly Keywell and Lefkofsky's personal money, not that of LPs (NEA has put a small amount in the firm, but is not considered an L.P.).Don't Spout Off About Social In The Business World – Just Get The Work Done
Dec 23, 4:00PM
Don't spout off about social in the business world. Just use it to get the work done, because that's what matters most. I have been reminded of that often during the year. Earlier this month, I wrote about Moxie Software and how it uses the Facebook social graph and a company's social data to determine the context for chatting with a customer over a branded page. The company uses Facebook and social data to help customers make the right decisions. It's not about social itself. Social data is just the vehicle to start a chat session when the time is right.Backed Or Whacked: Kids Projects Put The 'Fun' In Crowdfunding
Dec 23, 5:00AM
Editor's note: Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive. 'Tis the season when our thoughts often turn to the wee ones in our lives, and that has certainly been on the minds of some crowdfunding project owners and backers.Native Video Ads: Silicon Valley's Shiny New Thing Or Industry Savior?
Dec 23, 2:00AM
Editor's note: Charles Gabriel is vice president of sales for the AOL On Network. For anyone who's attended a conference on online media or advertising, or read any of the industry trades over the last six months, the phrase "native advertising" is all but inescapable. Originally coined by Fred Wilson, it's been evangelized into 2012's biggest buzzword. Its advocates point to Facebook's Sponsored Stories and Twitter's Promoted Tweets as well as experiments from the likes of Forbes and The Atlantic as evidence of the category's growing prominence.YC Grad & Esther Dyson-Backed Eligible Wants To Be The Stripe For Healthcare Transactions
Dec 23, 1:00AM
While there is a long list of startups that are using modern technology to improve healthcare and education -- to make us healthier and more effective teachers and learners -- many are still shying away from some of the most challenging technical problems. Not that this comes as a surprise, as both industries suffer from some intractable legacy infrastructure. Modernizing the infrastructures themselves, along with the way health companies integrate and exchange data is a difficult task. Eligible, a San Francisco-based startup and member of Y Combinator's most recent batch, is meeting this challenge head on. Big data is transforming healthcare (and education), and Eligible has set out to build a modern, standardized set of protocols to make it more accessible. A member of the same YC class as Clever, Eligible is applying the very same philosophy of its classmate to healthcare -- to pulling down the barriers that restrict its interoperability, making it easier to manage and integrate.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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