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True Ventures Confirms Investment In Second Life Founder Philip Rosedale's New Startup High Fidelity
Apr 19, 11:05PM
Earlier this month, we wrote that High Fidelity, the virtual world startup led by Second Life founder Philip Rosedale, had raised $2.4 million of a $3.4 million round, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, we didn't know who had actually made the investment — until today. Tony Conrad of True Ventures just announced that his firm led High Fidelity's Series A, and that Google Ventures and various angel investors also participated. The High Fidelity website now mentions Mitch Kapor and Linden Lab (the company behind Second Life) as investors too.iPad Still Dominates Tablet Ads With iPad Mini Gaining, Velti Finds
Apr 19, 9:55PM
Mobile advertising firm Velti has released its monthly report on advertising impressions across its network. The iPad is far and away the leader when it comes to the tablet market, and is gradually chipping away share from the iPhone in terms of overall dominance among mobile ads. The iPad mini remains a much smaller factor, but is growing steadily, and on the Android side it’s pretty much all about the Kindle Fire. Velti’s data found that the iPad accounted for 91.6 percent of all tablet ad impression during the month of March, and only lost share to the iPad mini, which gained a full percentage point to come in at 6.2 percent during the month, firmly in second place. The Kindle Fire was the next strongest device, with a comparatively small piece of the pie at 1.6 percent. The Kindle Fire still dominates the Android tablet segment, however, with only the Galaxy Tab line of devices anywhere close. Amazon’s and Samsung’s tablets made up 73.4 percent and 26.2 percent of all Android tablet share, respectively. Among phones, the iPhone still leads the pack, with the iPhone 4 still leading all handsets with 13.3 percent of the impression share. iPhones accounted for eight of the top 10 devices, with the Samsung Galaxy S II and S III coming in at 8th and 10th place, respectively. Samsung is running away with the Android market in terms of ads served according to Velti’s figures, with 68.2 percent of all Android impressions. That’s no surprise given the company’s clear continued dominance in terms of hardware sales. In March, most mobile app usage took place during weekends, with a much greater deviation between Friday/Saturday/Sunday and the rest of the week than Velti had seen previously, which perhaps indicates that more people were settling down to do serious work during the month. Finally, Velti also saw click-through-rates continue to grow on Android and shrink on iOS. This means that despite having a much smaller share of overall ad impressions, the ones that are viewed on Android are more likely to convert into some kind of customers action. That may be due to the more relaxed rules about what types of advertising and campaigns can appear within Android apps vs. those on iOS. Stil, iOS was better in terms of eCPM, but the gap narrowed between it and Android, meaning iOS users resulted in just a little less revenue on average than didAsk A VC: Google Ventures' Karim Faris On Why Enterprise Security Is Red Hot And More
Apr 19, 9:45PM
Google Ventures' general partner Karim Faris joined us in the studio this week for Ask A VC, where we put VCs in the hot seat. Faris, who focuses on the enterprise and e-commerce investments for the firm, talked specifically about the opportunity in the enterprise security space, and why we are seeing a growing number of startups succeed in the market. We're looking at a year of a number of breakout security companies, explains Faris, and maybe even a few IPOs in enterprise security. We also tackled reader questions about where mobile is headed in the enterprise.Announcing Disrupt NY's Startup Alley And Hardware Alley Companies
Apr 19, 9:30PM
Startup Alley is the loud and boisterous marketplace of Disrupt. Young companies, huddled around cocktail tables demoing their wares, are vying for attention and a spot on the Disrupt stage. And we're very pleased with the large group of startups exhibiting at Disrupt NY later this month. We have startups covering nearly every category including separate pavilions for Brazilian, Israeli and Italian companies.'Airbnb For Bikes' Startup Spinlister Returns From The Deadpool, Now With New Management
Apr 19, 9:30PM
If you're a big fan of bikes and Airbnb-type sharing economy startups like me, you might have been disappointed to learn that Liquid (née Spinlister), the peer-to-peer bike rental startup, was shut down a few months ago. The service, which launched in New York City last Spring, had just opened up to the general public a few months before being put on hiatus.This Week With The TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast: Google Glass, Ubuntu, And Vibrating Undies
Apr 19, 8:33PM
This week on the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast we talk about Google Glass, the Galaxy S4, and the magic of Ubuntu laptops. This time we're joined by Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Greg Kumparak, and a pair of underwear that vibrates in Australia. Enjoy!Is Our Addiction To Tragedy On Social Media Inspiring Violence?
Apr 19, 8:32PM
If terrorism requires an audience, than the recent mainstream adoption of social media has given violent actors a bigger stage than ever before. There are many reasons people lash out at the world, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that becoming the center of the attention could be a factor pushing some to commit atrocities. Our retweets could be delivering their messages of fear.Yahoo Will Shut Down Upcoming, Deals, SMS Alerts, Kids, Some Of Mail To Focus On Apps You'll Use Daily
Apr 19, 8:19PM
Yahoo has just announced a change in strategy designed to prep it for the mobile age and let it concentrate on core products like the Mail and Weather apps it launched yesterday. Soon, it will shut down Upcoming, Deal, SMS Alerts, Yahoo Kids, Yahoo! Mail and Messenger feature phone (J2ME) apps, and some older versions of Yahoo! Mail. People simply don't have the bandwidth for dozens of apps, so best to do a few well.Apkudo Wants To Handle Android Fragmentation So Carriers And Developers Don't Have To
Apr 19, 8:09PM
Baltimore-based Apkudo is debuting its "Apkudo Approved" program this week, extending its existing work with making sure that Android apps and devices perform well for consumers. The company has positioned itself in a growth market, to act as a layer both between developers and devices, and between devices and carriers, to help both parties deal with the fractured and often maze-like landscape of the Android hardware market.Bing Questions Study That Claimed It Delivers 5x More Malware Than Google, Says It Blocks 94% Of Clicks To Malicious Sites
Apr 19, 7:51PM
Last week, a study by German antivirus testing company AV-Test claimed that Microsoft’s Bing delivered “five times as many websites containing malware as Google.” Unsurprisingly, Microsoft does not agree with these findings and today, the company released a full rebuttal of AV-Test’s study. The researchers, Bing argues, used its API to execute queries instead of performing its searches directly on Bing.com. However, this methodology, Microsoft claims, bypassed Bing’s malware warning system. Microsoft’s senior program manager for Bing David Felstead notes in his response that Bing “actually does prevent customers from clicking on malware infected sites by disabling the link on the results page and showing the below message to stop people from going to the site.” Microsoft does not explicitly remove potentially malicious sites from its index, he writes, “because most are legitimate sites that normally don't host malware but have been hacked.” Instead, it pops up a warning when users click on these links. The reason for this, Felstead says, is that when users search for a site – even if it’s a known malware vector – they do expect the site to appear in Bing’s index and would think Bing’s directory is incomplete if it didn’t show up on the search results page. Overall, Bing says it shows results with malware warnings for about 0.04 percent of searches. Felstead also claims that Bing’s warning system blocks “94% of clicks to malicious sites.” Despite the fact that the competition between Google and Bing has been somewhat heated lately, Felstead does note that detecting malware on websites is a very complex problem and that “no engine will be perfect 100% of the time.” But he also argues that Microsoft does show these malware warnings on its site instead of removing the links from its index in order to protect users who may otherwise go to Google and “then click on it (because Google may not have detected it as malware) their machine could be put at risk.” Here are the original results from AV-Test:Everyone Is Literally Crazy
Apr 19, 7:41PM
Everyone has their moments of insanity. The Internet has made that painfully obvious, as our moments of abstracted, often context-less, craziness are haphazardly posted and then, in some cases, amplified for all to see. Because of this dynamic, we’re also given endless opportunities to deconstruct the way in which someone else has come unhinged. To wit: The first thing we do in a national emergency and scandal? See if the suspect had a Twitter, Facebook or Myspace account — and then play comments-section psychologist. Or worse. “We think of ourselves as sane and other people as crazy but really we are all a little crazy,” says BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, who will be giving the keynote speech at TechCrunch Disrupt. The talk will be about this exact topic, titled: “Everyone Is Literally Crazy,” like the headline of this post. After the last two weeks, I can confirm that someone somewhere needs to shed some light on why everyone seems more wacko online. I’m looking at you, Amanda Bynes. ***Buy tickets to Jonah’s talk here.*** “We think of ourselves as having consistent interests but really we are capricious and what we like depends on context more than our own convictions,” Jonah explains. “This all becomes clear on the web because we can measure human behavior so carefully.” The examples of the Internet exposing and archiving humanity’s darker psychological side keep pouring in: Just yesterday, Gawker posted this email from a sorority girl at the University of Maryland. The article, which garnered over 1.6 million pageviews, featured a Delta Gamma board member lambasting her sorority sisters for “LITERALLY being so fucking AWKWARD.” Another great thing about the Internet is how often people misuse the word “literally.” "If you just opened this like I told you to, tie yourself down to whatever chair you're sitting in, because this email is going to be a rough fucking ride. For those of you that have your heads stuck under rocks, which apparently is the majority of this chapter, we have been FUCKING UP in terms of night time events and general social interactions with Sigma Nu. I've been getting texts on texts about people LITERALLY being so fucking AWKWARD and so fucking BORING. If you're reading this right now and saying to yourself "But oh em gee Rebecca, I've been having so much fun with my sisters this week!", then punch yourself in the face right now soMobile Accelerator Tandem Doubles Partner Team With Rohit Bhagat And John Ellis, Announces New Startups
Apr 19, 7:31PM
Doug Renert told me yesterday that his firm Tandem, which backs early-stage mobile startups, is about to expand in a big way. The first step is bringing in more people, starting with two new partners that Tandem is announcing today — Rohit Bhagat, formerly chairman of Asia Pacific for investment firm BlackRock, and John Ellis, co-founder and executive vice president of product and technology at ad tech company Turn. Tandem is currently investing in three startups a quarter, but Renert said he's hoping to do much more. At the same time, he doesn't want to change the firm's hands-on approach. He describes it as an accelerator with "muscle capital." Like other startup incubators, it mentors batches of startups and offers them office space. However, it makes a bigger investment than most — $200,000 to start, and follow-on investments if the company is successful.Scapegoating Internet Conspiracy Theorists Won't Fix The Media's Hype Machine
Apr 19, 7:13PM
Reporters have a nasty addiction to a particularly potent drug: the attention that comes from getting a scoop. Last night, during the live manhunt of the Boston marathon bombing suspects, we saw a lot of respected writers completely tweaking out on it. For lack of evidence, speculation began to swirl from the least reliable of sources: Internet conspiracy theorists. In the morning, when it became completely obvious that amateur sleuths on Reddit had falsely identified a missing Brown University student as the marathon terrorist, many pointed fingers at Reddit as “vigilantes.” Crowdsourcing detective work isn’t to blame; it’s the reporters and media outlets that gave unreliable sources a voice. The poor high school track student whose face was splashed on the front page of the New York Post is reportedly now holed up in his home, afraid to go outside. "It's the worst feeling that I can possibly feel. . . . I'm only 17,” he told ABC. The name of another “suspect,” a missing Brown University student, was haphazardly tossed around by the likes of NBC news reporter Luke Russert on Twitter. Even though Russert was explicitly skeptical, that doesn’t stop moderately informed citizens from misinterpreting the whole ordeal: The unexpected infamy has caused the family of the missing student untold grief. “A tremendous and painful amount of attention has been cast on our Beloved Sunil Tripathi in the past twelve hours,” wrote a family member on a Facebook page dedicated to searching for the missing boy. Indeed, one of the top posts on Reddit yesterday was “Media Outlets, please stop making the images of potential suspects go viral, then blaming this small subreddit for it. And read the rules we’ve imposed before calling us ‘vigilantes’.” Continuing: “Until the media got involved, none of the images were going anywhere but to the FBI. Every single article on this subreddit so far reads like the writer took a glance at the front page then wrote an article about it, we explicitly have a list of rules to stop “witch hunts” … Edit: News outlets have spread images on TV & in papers of two male ‘suspects’ that they say the FBI is looking for, these have now gone viral. That media, is what a witch hunt is.” The FBI and Boston authorities made a nationwide plea to send tips, pictures and smartphone video into their hot line. It turned out toDisrupt NY's Hackathon API Workshops To Feature AWS, Box, Evernote, Facebook, Foursquare And The NYT
Apr 19, 6:45PM
Hackathons are to developers what state championship games are to high school quarterbacks. The pressure is on, time is running out, and in the case of the Disrupt NY Hackathon, there's never been a better audience of peers, judges, and media to impress. That's why we're incredibly lucky to have some of the best platforms in the industry coming to New York to run workshops on how you can stand on the shoulders of their giant APIs and build something truly awesome.Love Home Swap, The Members Club For Swapping Houses, Gets Into Rentals
Apr 19, 6:33PM
Love Home Swap, a U.K.-based startup that appeals to homeowners that want to trade their places, is getting into proper rentals. The company, which launched about a year and a half ago, was operating on a member subscription model. People would pay to get access to a network of homeowners that were open to swapping residences across 150 different countries, plus a travel team, personal concierge and travel guides. Now the company, which just raised $1.3 million from MMC Ventures, is offering rentals along with swaps. Swaps are, of course, free to members. With rentals, Love Home Swap will take a 12 percent service fee. If you’re a gold member, it’s 11 percent and for Platinum members, it’s 10 percent. On the hosting side, the company will take a 3 percent service fee, which drops to 2 percent for Gold members and 1 percent from Platinum members. Love Home Swap also pairs each transaction with an insurance policy from Hiscox to protect members against damages or theft. Rentals are a natural move for the company, as nearly two-thirds of members said they would be interested in rentals. It adds a different revenue model to the subscription business. Normally, Love Home Swap charges anywhere from roughly $15 a month to $42 per month to belong to its club, depending on the tier of service you want. At the top level, they get a concierge service that helps with restaurant and flight bookings. That business has helped Love Home Swap grow revenues by 37 percent and triple traffic since funding was closed in December of last year. The company just acquired 1stHomeExchange, to add 23,000 listings. Love Home Swap doesn’t really consider itself a direct competitor to San Francisco’s Airbnb. It positions itself as a service that caters to higher-end customers that are a bit older, own property and have the ability to go on holiday more often. The company points to listings like a six-bedroom house in Koh Samui, Thailand or a five-bedroom chateau in Brittany. The average age of their customer is 46 and they’re predominantly female. It’s split 50 percent between families while 21 percent are couples with no kids and 18 percent are empty nesters. The rest are independent travellers. About a third of the properties on the site are vacation homes, not primary residences. Another competitor in an even higher tier of the market is Inspirato, whichYouTube Network Big Frame Launches Multiplatform Apps Thanks To Beachfront Builder
Apr 19, 6:07PM
Launched last June, Beachfront Media's Beachfront Builder platform was designed to allow video producers to quickly roll out apps across a number of devices. Those apps would have custom skins and could even serve ads, with videos streamed out either via the YouTube API or by connecting to creator's own content management system.Penguin Settles With EU On Apple E-Book Pricing Case To "Clear The Decks" For Random House Merger
Apr 19, 5:51PM
Penguin has offered, and has confirmed to us that the European Commission has accepted, a settlement with the EC over the agency pricing model for e-books -- a case the stretched back to last year and involved Penguin, along with Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, as well as Apple. The other four publishers and Apple settled with the EC in September 2012. The deal will mean that Penguin can proceed with its merger with Bertlesmann's Random House, first announced in October 2012, and approved by Brussels earlier this month, so that the two publishers can better battle Amazon.Malicious DDoS Attack On Reddit Continues Into Afternoon
Apr 19, 5:37PM
Reddit's involvement - whether good or bad - in the hunt for leads in the Boston bombings case does not appear to be the reason for ongoing site outages. For those who can access the service today, a banner is informing visitors that "site availability continues to be impacted by a malicious DDoS attack."Another Win For Flat Design As Facebook Gives Its F Logo & Other Icons A Flatter, Cleaner Look
Apr 19, 5:21PM
Facebook has given its main "f" logo icon a makeover, flattening the design by removing the pale blue bar along the bottom, which gave the icon a reflective sheen/slight 3D effect, as well as moving the position of the f so it now bleeds right off the bottom. The overall effect is a simplified, unfussy and clean looking design with the f more clearly leaping out.Mobile, Social Newsreader Flud Finds A Home In The Enterprise With A SharePoint & Yammer-Integrated Service For Both Private And Public Content
Apr 19, 5:14PM
The newsreader business has undergone major shifts in recent months. Flipboard has emerged as the consumer's preferred mobile magazine, Pulse was acquired by LinkedIn for $90 million, Google Reader is shutting down, and now another early entrant, Flud, has refocused on the enterprise market. The company began quietly testing the waters about six months ago after feedback from customers hinted at demand for a white-labeled option that could be used to read private, corporate content.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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