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HealthTap's Q&A Service Sees 7.5M Uniques Per Month, With MDs Spending An Hour Per Session Providing 581M Answers
Mar 16, 8:13PM
When you have a health question, what do you do? Likelihood is that you either search Google for the answer, WebMD, try to call your doctor, or set up an appointment. For most people, the latter two options would be preferable, because, after all, you're more likely to trust a human being than Dr. Robot or some crowdsourced health resource.Smartwatch Developers Rejoice! Pebble Will Release Proof-Of-Concept Watchface SDK In Early April
Mar 16, 5:25PM
After much fanfare the Pebble smartwatch made the leap from fanciful concept to full-fledged product earlier this year, but now that units have started to ship and people have started to wear them, what's Pebble's next step? Why, enticing developers, of course. Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky noted in a backer update video released earlier this morning that an early version of the smartwatch's watchface SDK would be made available to would-be Pebble developers during the second week of April.Gillmor Gang: Attention Surplus Disorder
Mar 16, 5:00PM
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Dan Farber, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — enjoys a week of actual tech news for the first time in quite a while. Samsung's latest big screen phone comes with a suite of Android add-ons, some of which tickle @scobleizer's shiny bone while making it clear his rationale for switching to Android has more to do with pocketing his Google Glass base station.Dennis Crowley Of Foursquare On Social Search, Platforms And Rivals
Mar 16, 4:17PM
TechCrunch interviewed Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley a couple of weeks ago during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (referenced here). It was his third time visiting and speaking at the event, and perhaps Foursquare's most engaged visit of all in terms of going there: Crowley says that, all told, he met with 33 different companies this time around. It's a sign of how the company is looking for new business and new partnerships, and trying to extend itself as more than an app: as it gears up for whatever comes in its future, Foursquare is positioning itself as a location platform.Foursquare Aims At A Moving Target As It Tries To Close Another Round Of Funding
Mar 16, 4:16PM
This year's SXSWi did not herald the next Big Thing in tech, as some guessed it wouldn't, but it wasn't always this way. In 2010, a year when people were a bit more optimistic about the new new thing, Foursquare was the boss. First appearing in 2009, by 2010 it came into its own as the mayor of the location wars with its app based around checking into places and then sharing that information with your friends.Searching For Beasts In Silicon Valley's "War For Talent"
Mar 16, 3:00PM
Editor's note: Glenn Kelman is the CEO of Redfin, a technology-powered real estate broker backed by Madrona Venture Group and Greylock Partners. At a recent wedding in San Francisco, a friend who runs engineering for a successful, pre-IPO company started talking about a member of the latest generation of newly minted millionaires. This acquaintance of ours had started one company and then, before that company had ever made money, he sold a big stake to a venture investor, only to start another company in the same area.Who's Afraid Of Google Glass?
Mar 16, 1:00PM
"First you see video. Then you wear video. Then you eat video. Then you be video." -- Pat Cadigan, Pretty Boy Crossover Sheesh. A whole lot of people who presumably have never actually seen Google Glass in action appear to be really upset. "People who wear Google Glass in public are assholes," says Gawker's Adrian Chen. "You won't know if you're being recorded or not; and even if you do, you'll have no way to stop it," doom-cries Mark Hurst. Seriously, people? Seriously?If You Think 10% Is A Good Transaction Fee For Your Marketplace, Then It Will Struggle
Mar 16, 9:00AM
Editor's note: Sunil Rajaraman is the co-founder and CEO of Scripted.com, a marketplace for businesses to create content at scale; Scripted has a pool of 80,000 freelance writers and 1,000 customers. Follow Sunil on Twitter @subes01. Like many others, I read the news about Zaarly, reported by TechCrunch’s Rip Empson last weekend, with some degree of shock. Zaarly is a well-funded business with an extremely talented team and ample resources to execute on their original vision, so I cannot understand why they decided to pivot so early in the game. Bo Fishback, co-founder of Zaarly, offers a detailed explanation here, but I can't help but think they gave up on their original vision way too early. Zaarly’s pivot highlights a much larger point, which is that marketplaces take a lot of time and effort to build. Why are marketplaces difficult to build? The reason is liquidity; Simon Rothman of Greylock Partners writes the best material on the subject. There is always imbalance until you have that moment. People point to Airbnb and Uber as great examples of startup marketplaces, but they've only hit liquidity in certain big cities. Try searching for Airbnb listings in niche markets and you'll see what I mean. oDesk is just about there, but remember it took them 10 years and a lot of resources to build up both sides of the marketplace successfully. Josh Breinlinger wrote a great piece about the early days of oDesk, which provides some perspective on how difficult it is to get the flywheel spinning so to speak. Achieving liquidity is akin to nailing low-cost customer acquisition on both sides of the marketplace. Most companies only have to worry about customer acquisition cost in one dimension, e.g. if you are selling hard drives, the hard drives have a fixed cost associated with production + distribution. Marketplaces are effectively fighting a two-front battle. In his article, Rip noted how Zaarly is doing revenue-wise: At the peak of their "reverse Craigslist" days, Zaarly was processing $1 million in transactions a month. Let's examine this further: $1M in transactions * 15% fulfillment * 10% transaction fee = $15K in monthly net revenue As a marketplace entrepreneur, you do not want people necessarily making a living off of you. That sounds pretty abysmal, but it illustrates just how difficult it is to build marketplaces. Despite raising ~$15 million, Zaarly appeared to have a pretty significant imbalance in its marketplace; I would assumeFacebook Brings Down The Hammer Again: Cuts Off MessageMe's Access To Its Social Graph
Mar 16, 4:20AM
MessageMe, an app that launched last week and raced up the charts to the #2 spot in social networking in the U.S., is confronting Facebook’s touchiness around access to its social graph. The app’s integration with Facebook stopped functioning earlier today (see left), the result of the company’s decision to cut MessageMe off from its “Find Friends” functionality, according to sources familiar with decision. MessageMe CEO Arjun Sethi declined to comment in this story and Facebook didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The move resembles Facebook’s decision last month to shut off Voxer’s access to the graph, even though Voxer connected to Facebook for well over a year. Voxer is another communications app that supports calling and voice chat. Facebook cut the app off around the same time that it launched competing functionality with free voice calling to other users. In that decision, Facebook cited Section 10 of its platform policy (which is the same one it’s using in MessageMe’s case): Reciprocity and Replicating core functionality: (a) Reciprocity: Facebook Platform enables developers to build personalized, social experiences via the Graph API and related APIs. If you use any Facebook APIs to build personalized or social experiences, you must also enable people to easily share their experiences back with people on Facebook. (b) Replicating core functionality: You may not use Facebook Platform to promote, or to export user data to, a product or service that replicates a core Facebook product or service without our permission. MessageMe apparently replicates too much of Facebook Messenger’s functionality for the company to be comfortable with it. Facebook has long been touchy about providing access to the biggest of its strategic competitors like Google and Twitter. Back in 2010, Twitter’s then-CEO Ev Williams griped about the company’s unwillingness to let Twitter users look up their Facebook friends on the service or to send Facebook updates to Twitter. In the same year, Google and Facebook had a back-and-forth over Facebook’s access to Gmail’s contact importer because the social network wouldn’t send data the other way. But it’s only in the last year that the company has really stepped up enforcement against other startups. After cutting off Voxer last month, Facebook clarified its policy, saying that apps needed to share content back to Facebook and couldn’t replicate too much of Facebook’s core functionality. It cited the same policy in cutting off Twitter’s Vine hours after launch and Russian searchIs The Death Of JavaScript Upon Us, Or Is A Universal Language Transformation Underway?
Mar 16, 4:00AM
Editor's note: Péter Halácsy is co-founder and CTO of Prezi. Startups identify with JavaScript. When you're just starting out, you need to be dynamic. You need to be flexible. You need to be able to bust out a prototype that just works, and you need to be able to change it on a dime without recompiling your code. JavaScript was once the startup of the browser wars, and it crushed Java and Flash for the same reasons that startups have the ability to disrupt markets and displace the established players: agility and flexibility.UpWest Labs' Fourth Batch Of Israeli Startups Look To Go Big In The U.S. By Taking The B2B Approach
Mar 16, 2:53AM
In January of last year, Gil Ben-Artzy and Shuly Galili launched a startup accelerator with the intent to expose Silicon Valley to the next generation of hot Israeli tech companies -- and vice versa. While Israel has long been a hotbed for innovation and is home to the R&D labs of many of the world's biggest tech companies, the founders saw an opportunity to create a more fluid connection between Israeli startups and the Valley.See, Uber - This Is What Happens When You Cannibalize Yourself
Mar 16, 2:11AM
Uber drivers are pissed off. But that shouldn't come as much of a surprise... At least not to anyone who's been paying attention. A group of UberBLACK drivers congregated outside of the company's SOMA headquarters in San Francisco this evening, protesting the company's business practices. But adopting the same strategy as Lyft and SideCar has pissed off a number of its UberBLACK partners.Uber Drivers Gather Outside SF Office To Protest Dismissals, Payment System, Lack Of Input
Mar 16, 2:04AM
A group of current and former Uber black car drivers gathered outside the startup's San Francisco headquarters to protest what they said was unfair treatment by the company. When I arrived at around 5:45pm, a group of 30 or so were chanting, "No respect, no Uber!" every time someone left the building. The person leading the chants, Rajab Alazzeh of SF Best Limo, had apparently been asked by the other drivers to serve as an unofficial spokesman, and he rattled off a number of demands. He said that Uber needs to lower the company's payment cut from 20 percent to 10 percent, to designate a specific portion of the payment as tip that's paid directly to drivers, to offer health insurance (which Alazzeh said had been promised), to make the drivers into full employees with W2 paperwork, and to stop bringing on "unlicensed, illegal, unsafe operators" who don't have TCP certificates and permits. (Note that CEO Travis Kalanick disputes a number of Allazeh's complaints — see the update below. Also worth noting is the fact that the California Public Utilities Commission cleared Uber to work with non-commercial drivers.)Carrier App Stores Suck, So Japan's KDDI Did Something Different And Is Pulling In $250M A Year For Apps
Mar 16, 2:04AM
When Apple launched its app store about five years ago, the company had no idea it would become the success it is today. It disintermediated carriers from what would become a lucrative revenue stream, one that’s brought Apple more than $11 billion in gross revenue (based on the $8 billion figure that CEO Tim Cook said the company had paid out to developers by last month).- In the old feature phone world, developers used to have to beg and plead with the carriers for pre-install deals on phones. But these days, they just go straight through Apple’s review process or directly into Google Play. Some carriers have tried to run app stores over the years like Verizon’s Vcast app store, but they haven’t exactly been successful. Because Google Play and the iOS app store are still the main channels for downloading apps, how do carriers cope and stay relevant? Instead of starting another old app store, Japan’s second largest carrier KDDI launched a subscription program for a collection of about 500 apps last year. Called the AU Smart Pass, it comes pre-installed on its Android phones. At 5 million users per month paying 399 yen ($4.20) each, that’s up to $250 million in annualized revenue to pay out to developers. It’s definitely a unique model. KDDI partners with developers to bring apps into the AU Smart Pass but they often ask for premium or special unlocked content. For example, Japan’s hit messaging app Line, which has more than 120 million users, gives away exclusive stickers. Many of the other apps are normally paid ones. Then KDDI splits overall subscription revenues back with developers based on monthly active usage. Developers can also offer in-app purchases, but they get to keep 80 to 90 percent of revenue instead of the standard 70 percent that Google Play or Apple’s app store gives them. “We needed to invent a new model and we wanted to manage the shift from feature phones to smartphones,” said Kazuhito Shimizu, who oversees mobile business development for KDDI in the U.S. He oversees a $60 million corporate venture fund that has taken stakes in companies like New York-based taxi and transportation startup Hailo. “This is kind of like Netflix for apps,” he added, saying that consumers would get confused if there were two app stores — Google Play and a branded KDDI store — on their Android phones. TheGoogle Acquires Web Application Server Talaria To Enhance Its Cloud Platform
Mar 16, 1:22AM
Talaria, a company that was building a “new, dynamic web application server with a JIT-based runtime at its heart,” just announced that it has been acquired by Google. The Talaria team will become part of the Google Cloud Platform team. For the most part, the Palo Alto-based company was flying under the radar until now. The company was co-founded by Austin Robison in 2011 and was apparently still in private beta when Google acquired it. A Google spokesperson just confirmed the acquisition to us: “The Talaria team has developed cutting-edge technology that helps people build and run websites more efficiently, and we think they'll be a great addition to our Google Cloud Platforms team." While Talaria had a grander visions for its server, it only supported PHP so far and allowed developers to run applications like WordPress and Drupal. The company claimed that its technology allowed developers to “handle more users with fewer boxes, without changing a line of code.” Talaria also claimed its ” server lets you keep your favorite high-productivity languages, but with the scalability and performance you’d expect from a compiled language.” All of this is obviously a good fit for Google’s Cloud Platform, and Talaria’s announcement notes that the team will work to “help even more developers build and run their sites better.” Here is the full announcement from Talaria: At Talaria, we set out to fix the way people build and run modern web sites and applications. Over the past two years, we’ve proven our technology by powering some of the most popular sites on the web. Now, by joining forces with Google’s Cloud Platform team, we’ll be able to help even more developers build and run their sites better. We’d like to thank those people that helped us get here. Our investors and advisors that stood behind us, both in good times and bad. Our beta customers that pushed us, kicked the tires, and warmly invited us into their organizations. And finally, our friends and family that have gotten less attention and time than they deserve while we’ve been busy. We’re excited about what we’ll deliver together with the Google Cloud Platform. The Talaria TeamMailbox Cost Dropbox Around $100 Million
Mar 16, 12:29AM
Disrupt alumnus Dropbox made the second in a series of super-savvy, super-early stage acquisitions today, picking up hyped-up email management app Mailbox in an acquisition that we're calling "DropMail." We had been hearing that Mailbox was raising money, piquing the interest of Andreessen Horowitz among others, which is why today's news that the company sold to the harmoniously named Dropbox didn't come as a surprise. Sometimes an acquisition is the easiest way to raise resources for growth -- especially when you're tackling as expensive a problem as email. And have a six-figure wait list.Google's Niantic Labs Will Soon Launch An eBook Spin-Off Of Its Ingress AR Game
Mar 15, 11:35PM
This is a bit of an odd story: according to paidContent – and as first reported by to PublishersLunch – Google’s Niantic Labs, the somewhat mysterious division of Google that is home to Field Trip, the Niantic Project and Ingress, will soon start co-publishing a series of eBooks based on Ingress, its popular augmented reality game. A Google spokesperson confirmed to us that this report is indeed correct. The series, which, according to PublishersLunch, will be called ALIGNMENT and written and co-published with the help of Thomas Greanias; the first installment (ALIGNMENT: Ingress) will be published in April. The books are supposedly designed as prequels to Greanias’ Raising Atlantis series. It looks like Greanias has long been interested in the Ingress story, and the overall theme of the game seems to fit in well with his earlier books. For Google, though, this – just like Ingress and most everything else that has come out of Niantic Labs – is a bit of a departure. The company isn’t exactly known for launching games. And to then turn the game into a series of books is obviously new territory for Google, though Niantic Labs does seem to operate pretty independently from the rest of the company.Lawdingo, The Startup That Lets You Talk To Lawyers Instantly, Joins Y Combinator
Mar 15, 10:47PM
Lawdingo, a startup that connects users with lawyers for online consultations (sometimes instantly), is announcing that it's part of the current class of startups at Y Combinator. I last wrote about Lawdingo in November. You can browse lawyers on the site based on their expertise and location, and if you find one you like, you can schedule an appointment or in some cases hit the "talk now" button. The goal is to make finding a lawyer more convenient and more affordable. (On the affordability side, many of the lawyers on the site offer free consultations, and since you're choosing from a broad geographic selection, you can probably find lower rates.)Formspring, The Pioneering 'Ask Me Anything' Anonymous Q&A Platform, Is Shutting Down
Mar 15, 10:22PM
Formspring, a startup that helped pioneer the "ask me anything" format of anonymous Q&A online, is shutting down. The San Francisco company announced the news in a blog post this afternoon. The closure of the Q&A platform will occur March 31st, and users will be able to export their data until April 15th, Formspring's founder and CEO Ade Olonoh wrote in the closure announcement.Wayin's Scott McNealy On Making The Leap From Sun Microsystems Back Into Startups [TCTV]
Mar 15, 10:04PM
When it comes to high-flying superpowers of the tech industry, it doesn't get much bigger than Sun Microsystems back in its heyday, while it was under the leadership of co-founder and former CEO Scott McNealy. So you can imagine that it was a bit of a culture shock for McNealy when he dove back into the scrappy world of startups with the 2010 launch of his current company, the enterprise-focused social engagement platform Wayin. We had the opportunity to sit down with McNealy this week at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas for a segment with TechCrunch TV, and we talked a bit about how he made the transition from corporate giant to startup and the lessons he's learned along the way -- both the serious ones, and the more humorous ones.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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