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UrbanSpoon To Focus On Quality Restaurant Reviews After Selling Rezbook To OpenTable
Aug 06, 12:56AM
After stepping out of a heated battle over the restaurant reservation space, Urbanspoon is taking a new approach to its review services — editorial content. Yelp had acquired reservation management system SeatMe last month, which suggests it will replace industry default OpenTable with an in-house, mobile-focused competitor. When it bought Rezbook last Wednesday, OpenTable got some portion of the reservation usage it might lose if Yelp leaves. By selling its reservation system, Urbanspoon owner IAC needs to refocus. Ask.com CEO Doug Leeds will take the lead on creating more editorial content, and tells us that he ultimately wants to become the established brand for restaurant information. For reference, Urbanspoon was acquired by IAC in 2009 to become a part of CityGrid’s advertising network. Now the site will operate under the umbrella of Ask.com. While Urbanspoon users will still be able to book reservations using OpenTable, its main focus will be creating editorial content around restaurant information. Urbanspoon will provide this through community reviews like before, but will also add articles using an editorial staff and independent contractors. Users can expect to see a revamped site by the end of the year, as well as more long-form content and features. For example, Leeds says the site could start giving individual reviews for each menu item at a restaurant. Leeds is also planning to integrate expert posts on specific cuisines and cities. ”Call it the Kayak for restaurants if you will,” he explains. “You don’t get travel at Yelp, you don’t get plumbing at Kayak, they’re focused on a certain thing. And Urbanspoon has always been the place where people can get information from restaurants.” While this might convince users to go with Urbanspoon for dining options over Yelp, the company still faces direct competitors from a variety of other popular restaurant review sites, like Google-owned Zagat, and of course Yelp. Leeds sees higher-grade content as the site’s best option. He tells me Ask.com metrics have shown 35 percent growth in 2012, after increasing its editorial content. Ask.com is applying a similar strategy to its other properties, including About.com and Consumersearch.com. “This dynamic where people come to Ask to ask questions and we give them answers that are provided by other high-quality sites seems to be a model that we can extend to other properties with high-quality content. And Urbanspoon fits that mold perfectly,” Leeds tells me. With 26 million total users on Urbanspoon and over 100 million monthly users on Ask.com, he’llUnroll.me, A Startup That Battles Junk Mail And Manages Subscriptions, Says It Has 100K+ Subscribers
Aug 06, 12:52AM
We've written about Unroll.me, a service that helps users manage their junk email and subscriptions, before — most recently when it was redesigned in April. Now the company is sharing some stats about its growth. For one thing, it says it has more than 100,000 subscribers. It also says that more than 106 million emails have been diverted from inboxes thanks Unroll.me's "unsubscribe" feature, and that more than 225 million emails have been summarized in Unroll.me's digest emails. CEO and co-founder Josh Rosenwald said the company hasn't paid for any marketing, so all that growth has been word-of-mouth. In fact, he said the Unroll.me team has focused almost entirely on the technology, rather than growth, until now — though that will start changing "now that we're kind of hitting a groove."While We're Trying To Follow His Game Of Checkers, Jeff Bezos Is Playing Chess
Aug 05, 11:55PM
A few years ago, I just didn't get it. I couldn't for the life of me understand how a company like Amazon could operate, let alone flourish. I spent the majority of my time following Apple, a company which in many ways was the antithesis of Amazon. Apple was all about huge margins, big profit. Amazon seemed to avoid profit like the plague. The more razor-thin the margin, the better. They were Bizarro Apple.Bezos In 2012: People Won't Pay For News On The Web, Print Will Be Dead In 20 Years
Aug 05, 10:29PM
Before Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million, he had some choice words for the ailing print news industry. In a wide-ranging interview with the German paper, Berliner-Zeitung, the newly-minted media mogul said at the time that no one would bother paying for news online and print would be dead in 20 years (translation from our awesome writer, Frederic Lardinois). “There is one thing I’m certain about: there won’t be printed newspapers in twenty years. Maybe as luxury items in some hotels that want to offer them as an extravagant service. Printed papers won’t be normal in twenty years.” said Bezos. That’s a pretty long timeline (think what happened in technology since 1993), but it does given an indication that Bezos may pressure his new newspaper to accelerate abandonment of their print version. During the last quarter, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post’s print division posted a 4% decline in revenue. Revenue from online publishing, mostly from Washingtonpost.com and Slate properties, increased 8% to $25.8 million. Perhaps most importantly, Bezos claimed that, “On the Web, people don’t pay for news and it’s too late for that to change”. Last March, the Washington Post put up a metered paywall, charging readers who access more than 20 articles a month. While Bezos may not interfere with editorial, it is within his role as owner to see the paper to profitability. If Bezos thinks paywalls are misguided, we may see the Washington Post drop theirs. Bezos did not think Kindle was the salvation of papers, since “the problem is that many readers still prefer the printed version.” There will be a significant transition period where publishers will need both digital and print. Interestingly enough, Bezos says “We [Amazon] realized that people are willing to pay for newspaper subscriptions on tablets. In the near future, every household will have multiple tablets. That’s going to be the default and will provide momentum for newspapers, too”, so we may see some creative subscription models on the Kindle or bundled with other products. I’m curious to see how Bezos will be applying these ideas to his newly-purchased newspaper. Either that, or he will be ‘clarifying’ his words very soon. [H/T: BuzzfeedAndrew] [Image credit: Flickr user jurvetson]What Did Bezos Actually Buy?
Aug 05, 10:10PM
Jeff Bezos, not Amazon, is dropping $250 million in cash to purchase the venerable Washington Post. But it’s not only the paper that Bezos is picking up for his quarter billion. As part of the purchase, the Amazon founder will also become owner of a host of smaller local papers, the Washington Post website, and a printing outfit by the name of Comprint that the Post itself notes “publishes several military publications.” That’s a slurry. In short, Bezos now owns a minor newspaper empire, crowned with the Washington Post itself. But just how healthy are the assets that Bezos has purchased? Let’s take a trip through the numbers. Keep in mind that the Washington Post company is only so specific in its breakdown of revenue from its newspaper division. So, our looking glass is slightly dim. In the second quarter, the newspaper division at the Washington Post company had revenue of $138.4 million, which was essentially unchanged from the year ago quarter. This is to say that the newspaper business that Bezos just bought a large piece of isn’t in as steep a decline as you might have assumed. Print advertising revenue for the Washington Post itself was $54.5 million in the quarter, down 4% from the same quarter a year before. Again, that’s somewhat stable. The Washington Post and Slate.com, roughly, saw their online incomes rise to a combined $29.8 million, an increase of 15% in the quarter. Bezos did not buy Slate, however, so that figure is inflated compared to what the Washington Post will be able to generate on its own. That said, the Washington Post is the larger of the two, and so presumably commands a larger share of that specific revenue pool. Online advertising revenue for the newspaper division rose 25% in the second quarter. However, online classified revenue fell 7%. What does all that mean? Essentially that the online portion of the Washington Post is growing at a decent pace, even as one of its revenue streams – online classifieds – stutters. Print revenue is drifting downwards, as circulation slips. In the first half of 2013, the Washington Post saw its daily circulation decline 7.1% to 447,700. It’s difficult to tell how much money the Washington Post loses, if any. The larger and now all-but -former newspaper division lost $49.3 million in the first two quarters of 2013. However, of that loss, $39.7 million wasAshton Kutcher And Josh Gad On The Making Of JOBS
Aug 05, 10:04PM
On August 16, Steve Jobs biopic "JOBS" will hit theaters nationwide. The movie follows the story of a young Jobs deciding to start Apple, building the world's first personal computer out of his garage, and going on to lose the company he built only to be asked to take the helm once again, years later. Ashton Kutcher, who took on the role of Jobs and even ended up in the hospital along the way, sat down with TechCrunch alongside co-star Josh Gad (who plays Steve Wozniak) to discuss the biopic.Meet Tastemade, The YouTube Network For Food Lovers
Aug 05, 10:00PM
As YouTube networks go, there are some that are designed to attract talent from all over the spectrum, and then there are those which focus on specific verticals. With that in mind, Santa Monica, Calif.-based Tastemade has become the leading next-generation video network for foodies in just a few years.Mobile Weather App Minutely Lets You "Correct" The Weather, Visualize Storms In 3D
Aug 05, 9:45PM
Mobile weather applications may be becoming the new playground for user interface designers, but few can also make claims as to advancing the technology behind the display of the weather on users' smartphones, as well. But that's the case with Minutely, a newly launched mobile weather application for iPhone and Android which not only offers the usual assortment of weather info, like temperatures, forecasts, and precipitation details, but also a 3D view into the weather itself in an application built on top of Unity.Jeff Bezos To Acquire The Washington Post For $250M
Aug 05, 8:40PM
Yes, you read that right. The Washington Post Company just announced that it has reached an agreement to sell its newspaper publishing business to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos for $250 million. "I, along with Katharine Weymouth and our board of directors, decided to sell only after years of familiar newspaper-industry challenges made us wonder if there might be another owner who would be better for the Post (after a transaction that would be in the best interest of our shareholders)," said Post Chairman and CEO Donald Graham in a press release. (The Graham family has owned a controlling stake in the Post since the 1930s.) "Jeff Bezos' proven technology and business genius, his long-term approach and his personal decency make him a uniquely good new owner for the Post."DEA Reportedly Hiding NSA Data Used To Prosecute U.S. Citizens
Aug 05, 8:39PM
The Snowden effect continued to roll today, with fresh revelations detailing how the pervasive surveillance of the National Security Agency (NSA) is in fact linked to domestic criminal prosecution. The idea, and the defense, that NSA activity only impacts non-United States citizens and terrorists, is now utterly specious. The NSA is one of the member agencies of a DEA unit called the Special Operations Division (SOD). The SOD, according to Reuters who broke the story, is at work “funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help” start, and win criminal investigations of United States citizens. Therefore, there is a direct connection between the NSA and its surveillance efforts and regular criminal prosecution in the country. The Washington Post read the Reuters piece as an indication the NSA is leaking phone record information to the DEA, through the SOD, but we’re not convinced that it’s a proper reading of the source. However, the SOD does operate the ‘DICE’ database, which the DEA told Reuters has around 1 billion records, both telephonic and digital. The majority, but not all, are sourced by the DEA itself. What’s most surprising about today’s revelations is the process by which the DEA covers the tracks of its information. Using “parallel construction,” where information came from is hidden. Reuters tells a story in which a judge was told that a tip kicked off the investigation at hand. However, after pressing, it was admitted that the data had in fact been first captured by the NSA, and distributed by the SOD. By creating new pasts for received data, the DEA can avoid potentially awkward questions about the legality of its evidence. And the data that the NSA collects could be very useful to the DEA. The NSA, for example, collects metadata on every phone call placed in the United States. It is not clear what the NSA shares, or how often. However, it’s the fact that NSA data is being handed to the DEA through the secret SOD that is troubling prima facie. This is not the last time that we will have a conversation similar to this one. According to the New York Times, other agencies inside the Federal government are clamoring for the information that the NSA has collected, and continues to collect. Oversight? It has also recently been reported that members of Congress areFail Week: When The U.S. Government Knocked On Tim Draper's Door About That $6 Million
Aug 05, 8:20PM
It's said that history is written by the victors -- or at least, by those who empathize with the victors -- so it makes sense that much of the press coverage about the tech industry concentrates on the big wins instead of the losses. But the truth is that the business people best known for being "successful" have also had their fair share of failures along the way. They just don't discuss them very often. That silence about failure is something that needs to change. People who are working through struggles in building a business should know that they're not the only ones who have had dark days.OMGPOP Team Tried To Buy Back Its Site, But Zynga Killed It Instead
Aug 05, 8:07PM
OMGPOP almost got an extra life, but Zynga said 'game over'. Zynga just finalized plans to shut down OMGPOP, the game developer of Draw My Thing it acquired for $200 million in March 2012. But multiple sources familiar with Zynga tell TechCrunch the OMGPOP team was in direct contact with Zynga leadership in an attempt to buy back the site or continue operating it, yet Zynga refused.Time.com Hires Design Studio Big Human For This Fall's Big Relaunch
Aug 05, 7:59PM
Time is moving forward with its plans for a major redesign and relaunch of the Time.com website this fall, announcing today that it has hired design studio Big Human. It's an interesting choice, because most of Big Human's past experience has been on the tech and startup side — past clients include Jetsetter, 1stDibs, and Samsung. (Big Human's founder Rus Yusupov was also a co-founder at Vine.) In fact, the studio has never worked for a news site before — something that managing director Steve Spurgat said is an advantage.Judge Allows Quinn Emanuel To Continue Representing Snapchat In Lawsuit
Aug 05, 6:55PM
A judge denied alleged Snapchat co-founder Reggie Brown's motion to disqualify Quinn Emanuel from representing Snapchat today. Quinn Emanuel will continue to represent the company as the case moves forward. "We're pleased that the Court enforced Mr. Brown's clear and unequivocal promise not to seek to disqualify the firm," Quinn Emanuel partner Bruce Van Dalsem said.Y Combinator Startup 7 Cups Of Tea Connects People In Need Of Emotional Support With Trained Listeners
Aug 05, 6:30PM
It's almost a cliche to complain about the alienating effects of technology, but the Internet is an amazing resource for combating isolation. Sites and online forums mean people who suffer from stigmatized conditions like depression can find support that was unavailable just a decade ago. Now Y Combinator startup 7 Cups of Tea wants to help connect people in need of emotional support with the site's trained listeners.YC-Backed One Month Rails Teaches You How To Build Your Startup While You Learn To Code
Aug 05, 6:29PM
If you build it, they will come. But what if you don’t know how to build it? That was the problem facing Mattan Griffel, founder of a new YC-backed startup called One Month Rails that is launching today. “I didn’t study computer science or anything, but I had this great idea for a startup,” he said. “I just didn’t know how to build it. I spent the next few months looking for someone who could build it for me, and never quite found the right person.” Eventually, says Griffel, he realized he had to build it himself if he wanted to get it done, and started scouring the web for resources to help him learn to code. “I realized that when you don’t know anything about coding, you don’t know what language to learn or what you need to know,” said Griffel. Codecademy and Learn The Hard Way are different from One Month Rails in that they teach a comprehensive curriculum for becoming a coder in general, but don’t necessarily teach you just what you need to know to build your intended product or web app. According to Griffel, nobody knows which resources to use, or which courses to take to develop the skills they need to build what they want. One Month Rails teaches Ruby On Rails in less than a month, with a webbed structure so that you learn to build what you want without learning every single lesson under the sun. This way, you can have a functional web app up and running in no time. But why Ruby on Rails? Griffel explains that not only is Ruby on Rails highly popular right now (making it easier to troubleshoot problems with a simple Google search), but that Ruby on Rails allows a single developer to handle the front-end, back-end, and everything in between. As it stands now, the YC-backed startup has over 9,000 paying student customers, with a month of tutorials costing $49.95. Eventually, the team will expand beyond Ruby on Rails to Python, JavaScript, etc.Five U.S. Startups Wanted For U.K. Plc Sales & Marketing Opportunity
Aug 05, 6:24PM
The U.K. government's latest tech-related initiative has political photo opportunity written all over it. Said scheme -- The GREAT Tech Awards -- is heavy on jingoism (yes that's GREAT as in Britain and GREAT as in technology, see what they did there?) -- and light on payload and pay-off. But then the business of government is mostly a marketing exercise these days, so none of this should surprise.Can Mayer's Aggressive Acquisition Spree Drive Revenue Growth At Yahoo?
Aug 05, 6:08PM
Yahoo continued its acquisition spree last week, picking up RockMelt’s team. The company’s product will be all but instantly axed. Yahoo’s senior vice president of mobile wrote the blog post announcing the hire purchase, so it is not hard to see where RockMelt’s employees are headed. It joins a string of companies, often small and directionless, that Yahoo has scooped up to help fuel its new mobile focus. Yahoo has been successful at finding firms that might be packed with developers that are otherwise hard to hire, and buying the operation wholesale. I’ve lost track of the number of acquisitions, but it’s nearing two dozen since Marissa Mayer took over at Yahoo’s helm. It’s time to ask a new question: At what point does Yahoo’s aggressive purchase of outside firms to bolster its internal development corps help it grow its revenue? It is fair to say that under Mayer, Yahoo has undergone transformation in several ways: Internal culture and morale have improved, the company has made big bets on new demographics, and, yes, it has greatly expanded its pool of mobile developer talent that has helped the company grow its mobile usership. However, those successful efforts have not yet translated to new top line incomes. In short, Yahoo’s reformation has been undertaken during a period of revenue decline; Yahoo’s business is bringing in fewer dollars than it once did. In the second quarter, for example, Yahoo’s GAAP revenue slipped 7%, to $1.13 billion. Every new CEO should be granted a period of clemency, during which they can make initial reforms to the company that they now run. It takes time to institute change, and so for the first few quarters of a new CEO’s tenure, a respectful position of reasonable doubt is fair. However, that time expires, after which the CEO’s strategy can be measured on its own merits. Mayer has executed her plan well, as we noted before. If she had not succeeded at creating a better vibe at Yahoo, I’d argue that her ability to hire through acquihire would have been greatly lessened; a less cool Yahoo would be a less exciting potential new home for an ailing startup. We can therefore begin to judge the strategy’s efficacy. You might argue that it will take more than four quarters to reform a company as old, and large as Yahoo. That’s a reasonable point, but we can also look forZynga To Shut Down OMGPOP's Online Gaming Portal, OMGPOP.com
Aug 05, 6:08PM
Long before OMGPOP found its sudden (and rather fleeting) success as a mobile game developer with Draw Something, it began its life as an online game network at OMGPOP.com. After Zynga acquired OMGPOP for around $200M only to lay off much of the team a year later, it was unclear what would happen to this last lingering monument to the company. On September 30th, it’ll be shut down for good. It’s the final period in OMGPOP’s story, a Zynga-branded version of Draw Something left as its only legacy. Zynga is quick to point out that players will still be able to play Draw Something (both the original and the sequel) and Draw My Thing (the game that inspired Draw Something. I mean, besides Pictionary.) after the main portal goes dark. Some games (Cupcake Corner, Gem Rush, Pool World Champ, and Snoops) are gettin’ the axe a bit earlier than the rest, dropping off the Internets at the end of August.Kivo Uses Git To Make Collaborating On Documents Easier, Starting With PowerPoint
Aug 05, 6:00PM
Most collaboration software these days seems to focus on real time, but Kivo, a new Y Combinator-backed startup out of the accelerator's current class, is taking a different approach.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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