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The College Students Behind Norway's Hit Fun Run Look To Become More Than A One-Hit Wonder
Aug 08, 2:59AM
When iOS was a younger platform three or four years ago, every few weeks a small studio out of some tiny corner of the world would emerge with a top-ranking hit. There were games out of tiny towns in Northern Germany like Tiny Wings and then there were titles like Angry Birds, which some companies like Rovio parlayed into businesses that eventually became worth nine or ten figures. These hits out of left field, unfortunately, are becoming rarer and rarer as both app stores become more expensive to compete in. But they still exist. One from last year was Fun Run, the work of a handful of college students in Trondheim, a city in central Norway. Produced under the studio name DirtyBit, The platformer title went on to pick up 30 million downloads and 10 million monthly active users. The company’s CEO Nicoaj Petersen said he and his co-founders looked back into their childhoods to see what games they enjoyed and what they could rekindle in a synchronous multi-player format. They quietly launched Fun Run as a cartoonish platformer and it didn’t get much attention until a few months in. After they prodded users to compete in contests, the game suddenly shot up to the top of the charts and held onto a top 100 grossing spot in the U.S. for three months. Players were sharing their handles on Twitter, and asking others to join in. Even the most of the company still has a year left at university, they’re looking to parlay their hit game into a proper studio with future titles in the wings. They’re serious about it with scrum meetings early every morning, and sessions every day where they play the game to see how to improve it. By doing that, they’ll follow the well-trodden paths of other studios like Fruit Ninja-maker Halfbrick Studios, which is based out of Australia, and Russia’s Zeptolab, which is behind Cut The Rope. Some companies with early hits have chosen to go heavily down a merchandising path like Rovio, while other developers like Supercell have decided to focus purely on gaming. Some have chosen to take huge rounds of funding like Supercell, while others like Halfbrick have taken a decidedly indie approach without any external financing. Petersen said that all eight of the studio’s employees have pretty much shifted to building the company, and that they’ll be launching another game byFacebook Battles Snapchat For Visual Communication By Letting iOS Messenger Send Instagrams
Aug 08, 1:45AM
Snapchat sends 200 million private photo messages a day. WhatsApp sends 325 million. These are scary numbers for Facebook which prove the visual communication is on the rise, so it's just began allowing Messenger for iOS users send Instagrams and photos from other non-camera roll albums. It shows that while Poke failed, Facebook is serious about getting in on the visual communication trend.Sign Up For Hardware Alley At Disrupt SF, Be Considered A Giant Among Your Peers
Aug 07, 11:53PM
Every year I'm given the best job a guy could ever want: planning hardware alley, a one day extravaganza of some of the best hardware I've ever seen. This event, which happens on the last day of Disrupt, is a crowd favorite and I'd love to feature your gear.Bitcoin Clampdown Continues As Federal Judge Says It's A Currency
Aug 07, 11:09PM
Wikipedia calls Bitcoin a cryptocurrency (a currency that relies on cryptography), but now it’s official. A federal judge in Texas has declared that Bitcoin is a currency and should therefore be regulated just like U.S. dollars or gold. The ruling represents yet another attempt to regulate Bitcoin transactions, threatening the original purpose of the currency. While it looks like a recognition that Bitcoins are worth something, the decision threatens once again Bitcoin’s utopian concept. As a reminder, the Department of Homeland Security recently issued a seizure warrant on Bitcoin exchange service Mt. Gox because it didn’t comply to money transfer regulations. Today’s decision goes in the same direction. BTCST, a Bitcoin-based hedge fund, claimed that “the BTCST investments are not securities because Bitcoin is not money, and is not part of anything regulated by the United States,” wrote Judge Amos Mazzant. She then stated the exact opposite of BTCST’s defense: First, the Court must determine whether the BTCST investments constitute an investment of money. It is clear that Bitcoin can be used as money. It can be used to purchase goods or services, and as Shavers stated, used to pay for individual living expenses. The only limitation of Bitcoin is that it is limited to those places that accept it as currency. However, it can also be exchanged for conventional currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, Euro, Yen, and Yuan. Therefore, Bitcoin is a currency or form of money, and investors wishing to invest in BTCST provided an investment of money. Bitcoin was born on the idea that nobody could regulate it. Instead of having a central bank, Bitcoins are just a chain of characters defined by algorithmic rules. Anybody can try to find new Bitcoins and anybody can verify if it is indeed a real Bitcoin or not. All of this is handled by opensource Bitcoin applications and a few proprietary variants. The Bitcoin network is a peer-to-peer payment network, and nobody can intefere with it. The only real value of a Bitcoin comes from its users. Because Bitcoin owners are treating it as a currency, it becomes one. That’s what makes it beautiful and scary at the same time. Yet, Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto probably didn’t think that even the U.S. government would treat it as a currency and try to regulate it.Cyber-Security Company Sentinel Labs Raises $2.5M
Aug 07, 10:54PM
Sentinel Labs, a startup that detects cyber-security threats in real time, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Data Collective, Granite Hill Capital Partners, Accel Partners and several other angel investors. The company also raised $20,000 in funding last March. A graduate of Israeli startup accelerator UpWest Labs, Sentinel Labs is trying to eliminate all admin management in finding and blocking security attacks for enterprise. Instead of going through a network, the company uses software installed on every individual device as an endpoint solution. CEO Tomer Weingarten says the Sentinel Labs team is familiar with not only defending against malware, but engineering it.Brazilian Vacation Bookings Goliath HotelUrbano Gets $20M Third Round Led By IVP
Aug 07, 10:33PM
HotelUrbano offers hotel bookings and vacation packages in 35,000 destinations to a Brazilian user base of over 15 million registered users and 7.8 million fans on Facebook. The Rio-based startup closed 1.6 million travel bookings last year, generating over $120 million in revenue, and expects to double their revenue in 2013.Check Out YouTube Space LA, Its Huge New Space For Local Video Creators
Aug 07, 10:00PM
The number one request from YouTube creators in LA was for production space to help them create better videos. And so the company built out a huge, 41,000-square foot facility where creators could go to shoot, edit, and even screen their videos with other members of the local community. Check out the video and see for yourself what the YouTube Space LA has to offer creators.Conference Networking App Topi Gets Deep Meetup Integration
Aug 07, 9:35PM
Topi, a mobile event networking app that wants to help you find the right people to talk to at large conferences, today announced that it has launched a nifty integration with Meetup. The new feature will allow that site's members to more easily find each other at events and stay in touch even after the event ends or at other events in the future. Topi also now uses geofencing to allow meetup attendees to connect with each other as long as they are in the same venue.This Week On The TechCrunch Droidcast: LG G2, Nexus 7, Moto X And The Madness Of BBM For Android
Aug 07, 9:30PM
Surprise! We've got another podcast for you to enjoy with your earholes! This is the TechCrunch Droidcast, wherein we discuss all things Android on a weekly basis. The Droidcast features regular appearances by Chris Velazco and me, Darrell Etherington, along with a rotating Rogue's Gallery like Romain Dillet, who joins us this week.Biomeme Wants To Turn Your iOS Device Into A Disease-Detecting Mobile DNA Lab
Aug 07, 8:56PM
There's a vast, vast sea of the smartphone accessories out there that are designed to solve first-world problems (do we honestly need another bottle opening case?), but here's one that aspires to change the rest of the world. The folks at Dreamit Ventures-backed Biomeme have developed a device that will turn your humble iPhone or iPod touch into a lean, mean, mobile DNA replicating machine that they hope will ultimately change how diseases are tracked and treated.Ubuntu Edge Gets Its First Major Corporate Backer In Bloomberg, But Funding Still Off Needed Pace
Aug 07, 8:55PM
The Ubuntu Edge is an audacious attempt to crowdsource the next smartphone advancement. Canonical, the company behind the Edge and Ubuntu itself is seeking an exorbitant $32 million to make it happen, and gave itself only a month to raise those funds. Now, Bloomberg LP has come forward as its first major corporate backer, with a lump $80,000 contribution in exchange for 100 Ubuntu Edge devices and enterprise workshops and technical support.Investors Cheer Groupon's Appointment Of A CEO, Narrow Earnings Beat, Stock Buyback Program
Aug 07, 8:52PM
Groupon today reported the appointment of Eric Lefkofsky as its CEO, Ted Leonsis as the Chairman of its board, revenue of $609 million in the second quarter, operating income of $59 million excluding stock compensation expenses, and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.02. Investors are enthralled, sending Groupon up more than 13% in after hours trading.Fail Week: When Mariam Naficy's Startup Launch Was So Bad She Almost Gave The Investor Money Back
Aug 07, 8:19PM
Contrary to popular opinion, failure is not just for losers. Even the people known for being "winners" go through some epic missteps along the way. It's just that people don't often talk about it -- especially not in the tech industry, or the press that covers it. So TechCrunch has created Fail Week, a five day long video series that shines some light on the dark days that even the most successful entrepreneurs go through. On Monday we featured Tim Draper, who talked about being in debt to the government to the tune of $6 million; yesterday we featured Kevin Ryan, who talked about losing "total credibility" as DoubleClick's CEO when he had to lay of hundreds of dedicated employees during the first dot-com bust. And today, we're hearing from Mariam Naficy, the CEO of design marketplace and stationery maker Minted.Weilos Wants To Pair You With An Online Weight Loss Coach Who Has Shed Pounds Themselves
Aug 07, 7:58PM
A new startup currently participating in the Summer 2013 cohort of Y Combinator called Weilos wants to make weight loss attempts more sticky and more accountable by pairing those with weight loss goals with coaches who have already achieved theirs for personalized, one-on-one training. It's yet another example of the crowdsourced services economy at work, and one that also hits the current hot spot of health, diet and fitness.In The Smartphone Wars It's iOS Vs. Android And Windows Phone Vs. The Rest
Aug 07, 7:50PM
It's Smartphone Platform Market Share Day, meaning that your local nerds are atwitter about the latest figures: Android's continuing massive growth, the slowing of iOS's year over year unit volume expansion, and curiously, today, if Windows Phone's numbers matter. You see, Windows Phone posted the highest year over year unit volume increase, according to IDC, clocking in with a second quarter of 2012 to second quarter of 2013 gain of 77.6 percent. The simple kicker to that growth rate is that Windows Phone as a platform is exceptionally small compared to Android, which posted a 73.5 percent unit volume gain in the same period.Mobile Payments Platform For Apps Venmo Touch Expands To Android, iOS 7
Aug 07, 7:45PM
Braintree-owned Venmo is expanding its one-touch mobile payments platform Venmo Touch today, with a private beta release of Venmo Touch for Android arriving now, alongside the launch of an iOS 7-compatible version of Venmo Touch and the Braintree iOS SDK. This marks the first time the service has been made available on non-iOS devices, since its launch earlier this year.How The Curiosity Rover Sang Happy Birthday To Itself On Mars
Aug 07, 7:31PM
We're a few days late in wishing the Mars Curiosity Rover a happy birthday - it landed on the Red Planet on August 5th one year ago - so to make up for it we present Florence Tan, the team lead for the rover's on-board chemistry lab, talking about how they transmitted commands to the rover so it could play "Happy Birthday" to itself.
Prepare To Be Outdone By Pros And Brands, Instagram Just Enabled Video Uploading
Aug 07, 7:22PM
Anyone can shoot a good photo with Instagram. Directing a good video is a whole other ballgame. But until now there was an even playing field. Everyone had to shoot their mini-movies in the app. But Instagram just began allowing you to upload videos. That means pros can shoot on high-tech cameras, edit on a desktop, and post their masterpieces to Instagram to outshine your crummy amateur videos.Foundation: Evernote's Phil Libin on Building a Hundred-Year-Old Startup
Aug 07, 7:00PM
For the latest episode of my Foundation series, I interviewed Evernote CEO Phil Libin live from START SF. Phil discusses his views on the "cloud" moniker, Evernote's plans to be a hundred-year-old startup, and how to make encryption sexy (yes, really!).Facebook Publishing Optimizer PostRocket To Shut Down On August 15
Aug 07, 7:00PM
PostRocket, a startup that helps customers optimize their Facebook posts for maximum exposure and engagement, has announced that it will be shutting down on August 15. The company was incubated by 500 Startups, and it raised a $610,000 seed round from Polaris Ventures, 500 Startups, and various angel investors. The PostRocket team previously managed the Facebook presence of the musician Pitbull, and it dropped out of Babson College to participate in the incubator.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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