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Twitter Is Testing Out Its Official Google Glass App In The Wild
Apr 29, 11:31PM
It’s only a matter of time before Twitter releases its own Google Glass app, as Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr dropped the hint that the company was looking into building one during this month’s Glass Collective announcement. A tweet from an official Twitter Glass app has been spotted, interestingly enough by the gentleman that brought you the first unofficial Twitter app, GlassTweet. The user that it came from had no information in their bio when I looked at the profile, but it has since been deleted, along with the tweet below: You’ll notice the “Twitter for Glass” label, which denotes which app the tweet came from. That, coupled with the fact that the account has since been deleted, shows that somebody might have let the cat, or Glass, out of the bag a little too early. I reached out to Twitter, but the company provided us with no statement or comment on its intentions for Glass. It will be interesting to see what an actual Twitter Glass experience will be, as I can’t imagine that anyone would want to see every single tweet from their stream pass before their face. I could see the utility of getting direct messages, perhaps replies and mentions and most certainly sharing pics and videos. Expect to see a lot of Glass apps popping up from companies like Twitter and Facebook in the next few months, as they’re clearly trying to figure out how best to tap into a device that could increase usage and let users share a brand new perspective with media. The example that I always use with people is that Glass will be really fun at a concert or other live event, where I don’t have to take a phone out of my pocket and remove myself from the situation. It will be naturally to snap a shot without disrupting my field of vision and attention. [Photo credit: Flickr]MallWeGo Is A Social Shopping And Gaming Platform To Make Buying Stuff More Fun
Apr 29, 11:30PM
MallWeGo is launching at the Disrupt NY 2013 Startup Alley today with a social, gaming shopping experience for web and mobile. The company has built a virtual world for socialising with friends in avatar form, which looks like a simplified Second Life or The Sims, but the kicker is it's built for ecommerce, with a virtual mall where people can buy real-world products.Yahoo's Deal To Buy A $200M Stake In Dailymotion From Orange Scuppered By French Government
Apr 29, 10:47PM
It looks like lightening has struck on the towers of Dailymotion. Yahoo’s bid to take a $200 million majority stake in the video site — known as the ‘YouTube of France’ — has been killed by the French government, which decided that it didn’t want a U.S. company to take a controlling stake in a French operation, TechCrunch has confirmed with a source close to the situation. Rumors of problems with the deal have been swirling around for weeks now. At first it looked like the issues were because of internal disagreements at Yahoo, according to Business Insider. But a report in the French newspaper Le Monde last week noted that Orange had suspended the deal because of opposition from the French state, which owns 27% of the telecom company. We have confirmed with someone close to the deal that the latter is indeed the case. Our source said that Arnaud Montebourg, the French Minister of Industrial Renewal, effectively told Orange that it could not go through with the deal. “Dailymotion is considered a marquee company in France’s technology industry,” the source said. “Hence, Montebourg didn’t want to let it go to the Americans. He wanted anchorage to stay in France. It’s a shame because all of the growth at Dailymotion is international. It would have been in the best interests of the company. It’s stunning, really.” Stéphane Richard who wants to stay at the head of Orange for another term didn’t want to go through with the deal. In the meantime, Dailymotion won’t be able to keep up with the competition — and especially YouTube — if Orange is not ready to invest more capital in Dailymotion. The end to the Yahoo deal will have a couple of ramifications. For one, Dailymotion will likely now have to raise money from somewhere — France Telecom or the French government, or perhaps from a national business — in order to invest in its platform. Les Echos estimates that the sum will need to be in the region of €50 million ($65 million). The alternative to that is to seek out another buyer, probably in France, who would be interested in buying most of France Telecom’s stake, since the carrier had already made it clear that it intended to divest itself of most of that stake when it took it on earlier this year. It’s not clear which company would be aNew York City Turns Out For The First Day Of Disrupt NY 2013
Apr 29, 10:14PM
The first day of TechCrunch Disrupt NY is a wrap. The morning started with a fireside chat with Chris Dixon and Eric Eldon where the Andreessen Horowitz partner explained his take on Bitcoin startups and how 3D printing could transform manufacturing.Glide Rolls Out The Beta Version Of Its Video Messaging Android App At Disrupt NY
Apr 29, 10:04PM
The first day of Disrupt NY 2013 is nearing its end, but we can't end things without giving our Audience Choice winner a chance to present in front of our judges. Today, the Israel-based folks behind the video messaging app Glide (not to be confused with Battlefield contestant Glider) have been voted our first Audience Choice Battlefield company, and today they've officially launched the beta version of their Android app here on our Disrupt stage.Meritful Launches A Student CRM Platform To Help Recruiters Keep Tabs On Campus Talent
Apr 29, 9:52PM
College recruiting is becoming increasingly competitive. Companies have begun to realize that top graduates not only bring a lot of talent and energy to the table, but they also tend to cost less than more experienced prospects. But in order to successfully woo those fortunate enough to have their pick, businesses need to begin the recruiting process earlier. If they're going to stand a chance, they have to build long-term, non-spammy relationships with students and educate them on the opportunities and culture unique to their business.Kloudless Launches Service That Uses Connectors To Move Files Between Different Cloud Services
Apr 29, 9:41PM
Kloudless launched at Disrupt NY 2013 today with its service for moving data from email to different cloud platforms through connectors which act like pipes that flow between the different services. The service offers a plugin that the user installs in Outlook or as an extension through their web browser to use in Gmail or other apps, said CEO Eliot Sun. Kloudless does not store any data, nor files, the service sits in the middle, acting basically as just a pipeline. When looking at Kloudless, think of services such as ifttt but with less automation and more ability to customize how data flows out of email and into other services. The idea is to give people more flexibility when moving data. It may be that you want some ways to customize the data when pulling into Salesforce.com or some other app. It pulls data on-demand from one cloud service to another. For example, Sun said it has the capability to pull in data points from an analytics tool to a discussion in a service such a Yammer. Venture Capitalist Tim Draper and Yammer Co-Founder David Sacks liked the idea so much that they put a seed investment into the company. So far the company has raised $889,000. They believe that Kloudless can be a wedge in the market, offering the automation and the flexibility that companies need. Plus, it provides a level of data governance that can be developed with more customized solutions. There may be integrations that a company standardizes for reasons of compliance but also gives freedom in other ways that an automated system can’t offer. Kloudless is, in technical parlance, a “message bus” for the cloud. The message bus is a permanent layer, an intricate event-based system — a middleware essentially. Every event, every request, goes through the message bus. The data gets normalized and sent to the right place, in the right context. Companies such as Tibco have made a fortune selling message bus technology. Other companies like Tibco, Mulesoft and SnapLogic provide top down systems. Kloudless provides a bottom-up approach. It’s both a consumer type app and for managers, team leaders, and IT to provide dashboards for better visibility into data ownership/workflow and the ability to set cross-application policies. Kloudless uses a consumer enterprise style pricing. It’s free with limited features. Pricing starts at $3 a month. It uses its foundation as an email platform to network. The idea is to build enoughHandle Is A Priority Engine And Task Management App For Your Inbox
Apr 29, 9:29PM
Menlo Ventures partner Shawn Carolan searched for over five years to find an investment tackling the problem of email overload. Carolan, who led investments in Apple-acquired Siri among others, personally faced his own productivity challenges, and after not being able to find a startup that addressed all the problems he felt needed to be solved, he decided to build it on his own. Handle, which is launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, is Carolan's brainchild.Major League Baseball Brings Archives, Highlights And Live Streaming Games To YouTube (But Not In The U.S.)
Apr 29, 9:16PM
Major League Baseball has always been very strict about its content appearing on YouTube and other video streaming sites. Peruse YouTube for highlights from your favorite players and teams, and you'll find it nearly impossible to find quality footage. As soon as a clip from a game goes up on YouTube, it's taken down. Up until now, it's just a collection of slideshows and footage uploaded from fans' shaky hand-held cameras at the ballpark. Finally, Major League Baseball is stepping up its effort to tear down those walls.AppArchitect Lets Anyone Build iOS Apps, No Coding Or Templates Necessary
Apr 29, 9:13PM
Easy app creation, outside of the land of Ruby and Python, has become a huge phenomenon in the last year. And the latest company to join the fold,AppArchitect, is launching straight from our Disrupt NY stage. AppArchitect lets you build custom iPhone and iPad apps using a simple drag-and-drop interface. That’s right — you need zero coding experience to build your own iPhone app. It’s a brand new world. Once you log in to the AppArchitect system, you’ll be asked whether you want to make an iPad or iPhone app. From there, you head straight into a dashboard complete with a Screens tab, Library tab with default background and picture options, and a Properties tab where you can handle styling. You can drag and drop backgrounds, images, add text, maps, or links. From there, you can test and review your app before submitting it to the App Store for approval. According to co-founder Ilya Zatulovskiy, AppArchitect is unique within the competitive landscape because there are no templates in the entire system. Of course, the downside here is that n00bs looking to explore app creation will need their own unique idea in mind before trying to build. Still, the template-free model gives aspiring entrepreneurs and creative explorers as much freedom as a true, coding app developer. In fact, one of the few apps you probably couldn’t build within the platform would be a game. “The platform is fully extendable,” said Zatulovskiy. “Since each plugin is written in Objective C, any feature requirements can be implemented via our SDK.” The idea for AppArchitect started at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon in 2011, where the first lines of code were written. Since then, the company went through the DreamIt Ventures accelerator and so far raised a total of $325,000 from Actinic Ventures, BHV, DreamIt Ventures and angel investors, with plans to raise another round soon. The app creation industry has been blowing up lately. Services like Appy Couple and Yapp have been focused on niche use cases, such as weddings or events. On the other side of the spectrum, Kleverbeast is using similar drag and drop tools to build all kinds of personal apps in a snap. However, AppArchitect is one of the first services to offer web-based tools without any of the limitations of a template-based system. The company has been in a private beta for the past 4 months with over 400Yahoo Announces New Ad Formats: Mobile-Friendly Native Ads And A Big 'Billboard' On Its Front Page
Apr 29, 9:08PM
Yahoo is hoping to bring in more advertiser dollars with two new units that it's announcing today as part of the Digital Content NewFronts. Vice President of Product and Media Mike Kerns pitched the new formats as the flip side to to the front page redesign that the company rolled out in February. Now that Yahoo has improved its consumer experience (or at least one of the main parts of the consumer experience), he said "the next big push" will include new ad products.Apple's Jony Ive Said To Be Bringing The Flat Design Fad To iOS 7 With Visual Overhaul
Apr 29, 9:01PM
iOS 7 is probably right around the corner, at least as a preview coming at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference in June, and it looks like it might be the most exciting change to Apple's mobile OS we've seen in a long time, at least on the surface. iOS 7 will get a flat visual look, which is all the rage these days, at the hands of Apple's chief design guru Jony Ive, according to a new report by 9to5Mac. The blog's sources say that it's "very, very flat," losing any evidence of computer-generated shine, glare or the skeuomorphism reportedly favored by deposed iOS chief Scott Forstall.Fashion-Focused Startups Stylit And Black Tag Offer Free, Personal Shoppers For Both Women & Men
Apr 29, 8:58PM
E-commerce is booming, but shopping for clothing online can still be a challenge. Unlike many consumer products, clothing is personal and often needs to be tried on for fit. Plus, there are numerous options available via the web, so sometimes it’s tough to even know where to begin with an online shopping expedition. Two companies from TechCrunch Disrupt NY’s Startup Alley are addressing these problems by offering personal stylists and recommendations online. One, Stylit, is targeting women and another, Black Tag, is focused on men. Stylists-as-a-service? Yep, it’s that kind of thing. Tel Aviv-based Stylit’s co-founder and chief stylist Maya Kramer has a decade’s worth of experience in the fashion industry: She’s worked as a stylist herself, as well as a personal shopper, photo shoot producer, boutique owner, fashion writer, styling instructor, model and even TV personality. Her clients have included Vogue, Sak's Fifth Avenue, Microsoft, Glamour, Target, Victoria's Secret and various celebrities, designers and artists. Others on the founding team include CEO Yaniv Nissim, CTO Michael Gutkin, and lead engineer Shilo Ayalon. “We feel that personal styling was not accessible to everyone,” explains Kramer. “Stylit solves this.” After signing up on the website, users are prompted to fill out a questionnaire, detailing their budget, body type, and personal tastes. Stylit’s personal shoppers will then curate a selection of outfits based on these answers. The outfits, sent out on a weekly basis, don’t just include the clothing, but also accessories like shoes, bags, hats, jewelry, etc. Users can choose to buy the outfit and/or the individual items, or just pass altogether. But to help the stylists better learn their own personal tastes, users are also asked to rank the outfits they’re sent, allowing the recommendations to improve over time. Unlike with many stylists in the offline world – and even some found online – there’s no charge to use Stylit’s personal shopping service. Instead, the company is monetized through affiliate sales for now, though Kramer explains that longer-term, the company could work with brands directly to help them connect with those who best fit their target demographic. In addition, the company wants to eventually build each of their users their own personalized stores that provide items that fit their body type and style preference, says Kramer, who calls this bigger vision a “Pandora for online shopping.” The stylists work for the site on a freelance basis. This differentiates the service fromBidzy Launches As An E-Commerce Platform At Disrupt NY For Local Services Firms To Grab New Customers, One Last-Minute Bid At A Time
Apr 29, 8:45PM
Bidzy, a new platform for connecting local services businesses with customers who need the service they offer in the next few hours, is launching at Disrupt NY 2013 today. Like the best ideas, Bidzy's premise is simple: allow the customer to specify exactly what they want and the amount they are willing to pay and then let the individual businesses decide if they're happy to take the job on.Keen Home Launches Crowdfunding Campaign For Its Connected Central Heating And Cooling Vents
Apr 29, 8:31PM
Disrupt NY 2013's Startup Battlefield competition is now well underway, and now New York native Keen Home is taking the stage to present its first-round pitch. Keen Home is a home automation startup, which aims to follow in Nest's footsteps by building remote vents for your central air conditioning and heating systems that can be controlled from your smart phone to optimally direct air where you actually need it, and away from places you don't.Floored Generates Customizable 3D Models For Real Estate Using Kinect-Like Sensors
Apr 29, 8:19PM
Floored scans office spaces, apartments and houses using 3D camera technology and proprietary software to build customizable 3D models for real estate purposes. At Disrupt NY 2013, the company launched the platform to create an immersive, interactive and user-friendly experience. Instead of static photos and floor plans, you can move around in real-time, add furniture and easily realize if the space is a good fit. “The marketing in the commercial real estate industry is absolutely abysmal,” co-founder and CEO Dave Eisenberg said in a phone interview before Disrupt. “The two-dimensional floor plan has not evolved in decades.” At first, Eisenberg was interested in 3D capturing and wanted to explore potential real-world applications. That’s when he discovered Matterport, a 3D device to capture interior spaces, and partnered with it to take advantage of Matterport’s existing hardware solutions. “Matterport is a pretty incredible technology company. They incorporated the Kinect into a device they built,” Eisenberg said. “It's the first point-and-shoot solution to grab a 3D capture of your environment.” Matterport now works with Primesense, which manufactures the sensor inside the Kinect. But Floored had to customize the device to their needs and develop a new software layer on top of Matterport’s existing capabilities. The two companies are tackling different pieces of the puzzle and have different clients in mind. Floored cleans up the data in-house and renders the result in real time for the web and its iPad app. The entire process currently takes 48 to 96 hours. At Disrupt, Floored unveiled its next update, due later this year, with new features, such as the ability to change the lighting conditions in real time. Users will also be able to add furniture using a really simple 3D editing tool. “This is the number one most requested feature set,” Eisenberg said onstage. In addition to the technology achievement, Floored allows for nearly limitless customization possibilities. You can make changes to a space and see how it would look like. For example, Floored turned an empty retail space into a coffee shop. In addition to seeing a place in its current condition, you can see it in a new condition. Floored showed the Disrupt crowd an impressive demo of the top floor of One World Trade Center. You can walk around and enjoy the view just like you will be able to do later this year. The New York-based startup has raised $1 millionPaidpiper Launches At Disrupt NY, Letting You Pay For Others' Purchases In Stores
Apr 29, 8:07PM
Paidpiper launched at Disrupt NY today, aiming to make your physical wallet, and presence, less necessary -- in a good way. Paidpiper aims to solve that problem with its consumer-facing app, Ok'd. Using Ok'd, you can walk into a store, snap a picture of a product, and send it to a friend, parent, employer, etc. and ask them to pay for it.Good Technology Raises $50M On Its Road To An IPO
Apr 29, 8:07PM
Mobile device management company Good Technology has raised $50 million, according to a Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing. A company spokesperson confirmed the fundraising but had no comment about the purpose of the raise. The SEC document says the company is seeking a total of $60 million. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Good Technology is backed by Oak Investment Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Meritech Capital Partners, DFJ ePlanet Ventures, DFJ Growth Fund, Rustic Canyon Ventures, Allegis Capital, GKM and Blueprint Ventures. In its E round, investors included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Advanced Equities, Crosslink Capital and Broadview Ventures. Good Technology plays in the fast-consolidating MDM market. It provides enterprise mobility technologies across multiple platforms and security and management software. Its product offerings include Good for Enterprise, Good for Government, Good for OEM Device Manufacturers/Carriers and Good Dynamics. Good puts an emphasis on providing a platform that allows enterprise developers and ISVs to create secure mobile applications. It has been reported that Good is pursuing an IPO. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company has hired four investment banks to explore the possibility of a public offering. The IPO is believed to be taking place later this year. Morgan Stanley, Barclays PLC, Bank of America Corp., and Citigroup Inc. were hired to help with a deal that the WSJ says is likely to be valued at over $1 billion. The bring your own device (BYOD) movement has in many ways changed the dynamics for the way people work. Mobile use is accelerating faster than any expected, leading to some interesting issues for IT managers who have become accustomed to managing desktop personal computers and laptops. The shift has forced the CIO to adopt the tools provided by MDM vendors. Enterprise vendors recognize this budding demand and have been making acquisitions to build out mobile work suites. For example, in January, Citrix acquired Zenprise , an MDM vendor.42 Is The Answer To Everything…In Personalized Analytics For Retail
Apr 29, 7:53PM
An online retailer platform called simply “42” is debuting today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY with new ideas about how to bring the intelligence of online e-commerce tools to brick-and-mortar merchants. The B2B platform provides businesses and brands a way to better connect and personalize their interactions with customers, as well as to gain broader insight into consumer buying patterns, customer loyalty, and more. The company was founded just this February by a team which includes Cathy Han, formerly of Procter & Gamble, and Nick Porter, previously of mobile customer engagement solutions provider Benbria. There are two part-time co-founders involved as well: Lucas Lemanowicz of Palantir and Sarah Hum of Google. Han explains that the inspiration for building 42 – which, yes, is a nod to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - arose from her work at P&G, whose clients include several large retailers. “My job was to look at the data, and look at where the gaps in their businesses were. It was a huge realization that, as it turns out, a lot of these brick-and-mortar businesses don’t have access to a suite of online tools,” she explains. “They could use technology a lot better to help engage their customers and drive their sales.” She felt there was not only an opportunity in developing a suite of online tools for this underserved market, but also because there were few who really understood the industry from both the technology and the retailers’ side. 42 today is an online B2B platform which uses data from retailers’ point-of-sale systems. That data is manually exported and uploaded into 42′s systems, but the eventual goal is to automate that process. Once online, the business can view a snapshot of key trends among customers and sales in a visual and intuitive dashboard interface. The main screen shows things like total sales, margins, average sales per customer, growth drivers, popular items and best sellers, among other things. Another part of the 42 interface offers more granular data about the store’s top customers, including demographic and contact information, past purchases, and more. On the consumer side, the system relies on collecting a shopper’s email information at checkout – which could be a challenge given that, historically, this information has only been used to add consumers to mass mailing lists which offered little value. So it will be up to the retailers themselves to explain to customers the benefitsGreentape Brings Reviews To Consumers And Data To Merchants
Apr 29, 7:31PM
With a plan of making product ratings social, Greentape is launching a new app that they hope will bring in-store product reviews to consumers while (hopefully) spawning more product purchases for merchants. The team is demoing this new app at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.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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