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Om Malik, Father Of Tech News Blogging, American Citizen
Aug 14, 4:52AM
Om Malik is good people. He is also as of today, after a cornucopia of Visas and a decade as a Green Card holder, an American citizen. For those of you not familiar with Om Malik, he happens to be one of the forefathers of professional tech news blogging, founding GigaOm in 2006 when he realized he was seeing more engagement on his personal website than at his then employer Business 2.0.India's Accelerator GSF Graduates A New Batch Attacking Everything From Trip Planning To ECGs
Aug 14, 3:00AM
GSF, an incubator endeavoring to become a “TechStars” for India and the developing world, just graduated its second batch of startups covering everything from trip planning in South Asia to CRM to cheaper electo-cardiograms. The accelerator, which just started off a year ago, is the brainchild of longtime Reliance Entertainment executive Rajesh Sawhney. He’s been seeking a way to jumpstart a startup culture in India, even as multi-national foreign and domestic companies continue to recruit the best technical talent out of the country’s universities. India has had a few notable growth-stage startups like advertising network InMobi and Flipkart, but Sawhney wants foster a broader pool of startups across the entire country. Instead of concentrating the accelerator in a single city, GSF simultaneously runs a 10-week program in New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai. Sawhney says this is because India has so many major cities with technical talent, each with their own strengths. Mumbai is at the heart of India’s entertainment industry while Bangalore is the tech hub that attracts foreign companies. Since the first batch, Sawhney has added a few more weeks onto the accelerator program and strengthened the mentor system to help companies after they’ve graduated from the program. Out of the company’s first batch of 14 companies, eight have gone on to raise additional funding and GSF has participated in four of those rounds. One of the more interesting companies to come out of this round is Dhilcare, a company that’s creating a very basic electro-cardiogram machine (pictured left) that can hook into smartphones and send reports for remote readings. The company estimates that there are 32 million heart patients in India, yet there are only 6,000 cardiologists. The vast majority of these patients also live in rural areas, where they have poor access to medical professionals. So Dhilcare’s basic ECG machine could allow rural patients to have access to diagnoses from remote doctors where there would otherwise have no ability to receive medical care. The other companies include: Clinchpad is a CRM platform that’s very visual and designed for smaller businesses. Postergully lets people buy posters and merchandise in India. They let brands design and distribute merchandise using a “just in time” model. Triptern lets people create travel itineraries on the fly in major cities in India. Browntape lets merchants in India easily integrate and track sales analytics from all the major e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. TimesaverzWhat Zynga's Management Shake-Up Under New CEO Mattrick Means
Aug 14, 1:24AM
Just a month and a half after he was announced as the new CEO of Zynga, former Microsoft executive Don Mattrick is cleaning house. He restructured the top level of management in a move that will see COO David Ko, CTO Cadir Lee and Chief People Officer Colleen McCreary leave. Mattrick explained the move, saying that senior executives could work more directly with product. He said in a memo today, “We are taking layers out of the executive rank to get senior leaders closer to important product initiatives.” Lee and McCreary are very, very long-time Zynga executives who have been with the company for more than four years and have a complicated history. Lee was close with co-founder, former CEO and now chairman and chief product officer Mark Pincus, while McCreary was infamously associated with a brouhaha over how Zynga was attempting to claw back equity from employees. Ko joined the company more recently from Yahoo. He had started off overseeing Zynga’s mobile efforts, then was promoted to chief operating officer later after former COO John Schappert resigned. When Ko had talked to us in previous calls, he emphasized that Zynga was simplifying its slate of games and re-evaluating prospective titles in the pipeline, which has led to an intentionally thinner set of launches this and next quarter and lower revenues. While he has a reputation as savvy political operator, he lacked the years of direct experience in game development that many other longtime Zynga managers have had. Mattrick also said the changes should embolden studio leads to take more initiative on product and game decisions. There are now three overall divisions: 1) studios, 2) technology, live ops and publishing and 3) functional areas covering legal, finance and human resources. One observer said that the changes with studio leadership effectively put everyone in a horse race where they’re more transparently and directly responsible for the performance of their units. In about two quarters, it should be obvious who is underperforming and who is not. The studios are getting consolidated with Steve Chiang overseeing the Villes and International, which could be interpreted as a demotion since it doesn’t include FarmVille. Meanwhile, Tim LeTourneau, who successfully oversaw the launch of Farmville 2, gets to continue to oversee Zynga’s crown jewel franchise. Travis Boatman, a longtime EA Mobile executive who joined Zynga under Schappert’s tenure, also continues to oversee mobile titles that fall under theWhy Ladar Levison Shuttered Encrypted Email Service Lavabit In The Face Of Government Pressure
Aug 14, 12:43AM
Today Ladar Levison, owner of the now-shuttered Lavabit email service, spoke to Democracy Now about his decision to close his company. In the interview, he expressed support of leaker Edward Snowden, and made it exceptionally plain the limits of what he is allowed to say. Not much, it turns out, the First Amendment be damned.New York's Financial Services Subpoenas Bitcoin Firms To "Root Out Illegal Activity"
Aug 13, 11:39PM
Twenty-two Bitcoin companies received a letter from New York's top banking regulator to determine whether they respect the current financial regulatory guidelines. More importantly, the authority wants to create a new set of rules to make sure that bitcoins are not used for illegal activities. "We have also seen instances where the cloak of anonymity provided by virtual currencies has helped support dangerous criminal activity, such as drug smuggling, money laundering, gun running, and child pornography," Financial Services superintendent Benjamin M. Lawsky said in a statement.Wholesale Catalogue Lookboard Aims To Open Up Buying Process For E-Commerce Sites
Aug 13, 11:21PM
A startup called Lookboard is hoping to bridge the gap between e-commerce retailers and small-scale suppliers by functioning as an online wholesale catalogue. The site aims to simultaneously streamline the buying process and expose merchandisers to a broader range of products than they might be able to track down on their own, while giving traction to designers who might otherwise go unnoticed. Daily deals sites like Zulily, No More Rack, Living Social and Nordstrom's HauteLook are some of Lookboard's biggest buyers, which has also gained traction with more discovery-focused sites like Fab. The sellers are lesser-known designers spanning categories, such as home decor, women's and men's clothing, art, tech, jewelry and food.Glam Media Raises Another $25M As It Prepares To Go Public
Aug 13, 11:14PM
Digital media company Glam Media has raised $25 million in new funding, according to an industry source. (The company declined to comment.) My source said this is a "top up round" for Glam — in another words, some extra cash to keep the company going while it goes through the IPO process. Business Insider reported back in February that Glam (which runs a number of lifestyle-focused sites including Glam and Foodie, and runs advertising across a broader network of publishers) had filed for an IPO, using a provision in the JOBS Act to initially keep the filing secret.TC Cribs: Mulu, The Cozy And Cool Startup That's Right In The Heart Of Hollywood
Aug 13, 11:12PM
We made sure to put on our trendiest hoodies and shiniest sneakers for this episode of TechCrunch Cribs, which brought us out of our casual hometown of San Francisco and into the heart of Hollywood. Here is where we found Mulu, the startup that combines cutting edge online commerce with charitable goodness -- Mulu's technology lets web publishers embed shoppable links to products referenced in their content and give a portion of the proceeds to the charity of their choice. You'd expect something special from an L.A.-based company with tight ties to fashion, and Mulu delivered on those expectations and then some by striking the perfect balance between cozy and super cool.Following Comical Scrap With Google, Microsoft's YouTube App Will Return To Windows Phone Today
Aug 13, 10:56PM
Well, Windows Phone fans, you are almost home. Today Microsoft's YouTube application for Windows Phone will return to the platform's marketplace. At last, Google and Microsoft appear to have worked out a compromise that will allow for a fully featured YouTube experience on the latter's mobile platform. Google and Microsoft have had a fraught year, bickering over email syncing, search dominance and mobile mapping. And the YouTube thing.Straight Pride UK, A "Heterosexual Rights" Group, Sics The DMCA On A Journalist
Aug 13, 10:08PM
In an excellent example of the Streisand Effect working its sordid magic, a group called Straight Pride UK has forced Wordpress.com to pull a story by student journalist Oliver Hotham that featured an interview with the group in regards to heterosexual rights in UK.White House Says Intelligence Director Will Not Lead NSA Review Group
Aug 13, 9:38PM
Despite some initial freakout, the White House is out to quell rumors that embattled Director Of National Intelligence, James Clapper, will direct a new independent review group of the National Security Agency. “Director Clapper will not be a part of the group, and is not leading or directing the group's efforts,” a White House spokeswoman, Caitlin Hayden, told The Hill. After President Obama’s announcement of a new agency to review mass surveillance procedures, he sent out an obligatory note to Clapper, “by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I am directing you to establish a Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (Review Group).” [PDF] A number of tech blogs were up in arms, running stories with titles like, “President Obama orders intelligence chief accused of lying to Congress to lead NSA review.” Clapper has come under criticism after denying in congressional testimony that his agencies were collecting records on millions of Americans (they, in fact, are). So, he would be a terribly biased leader if he were in charge of the review group. But, it takes a pretty liberal reading of a rather perfunctory note to assume that Obama had already failed on his promise of transparency. In truth, we know nothing about the commission, its participants, or the authority it will have. It did, at the very least, produce some funny tweets.Facebook Reveals 78% Of US Users Are Mobile As It Starts Sharing User Counts By Country
Aug 13, 9:35PM
A new level of transparency from Facebook will help the world see whether its mobile growth is entirely propped up by international users that don't earn the company as much money. Today Facebook announced it will start sharing country-by-country web and mobile monthly and daily user counts. Facebook's 101 million US daily mobile users make up a whopping 78% of its 128 million daily US users.Pinterest Targets Casual Visitors With New "Pinterest For Teachers" Site, May Add More Content Hubs In Future
Aug 13, 9:23PM
Pinterest has launched what may be the first of several official "hubs" featuring content targeting a particular segment of its user base, with today's debut of a new "Pinterest for Teachers" site at pinterest.com/teachers. Obviously timed to coincide with the back-to-school rush and news cycle, the company tells us that the new hub will also serve as something of a test to see if it makes more sense to continue down this path in the future, with more hubs devoted to other interests or groups.AOL CEO Tim Armstrong Apologizes For Brutally Firing Employee During Patch All-Hands Call
Aug 13, 8:53PM
After a call with the AOL-owned Patch team included the public firing of Patch Creative Director Abel Lenz last week, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has issued an internal memo apologizing for the action and providing some additional context (disclosure: AOL also owns TechCrunch). In the memo obtained from a tipster, Armstrong says that he has apologized to Lenz for the behaviour and that it was unfair to the former employee at a "human level."GitHub Adds Trending Page To Filter By Project, Programming Languages And Developers
Aug 13, 8:31PM
GitHub has launched a way to see what is trending across its service, making it easier to filter by time period, trending projects, developers and programming languages. Eight times a day, the new GitHub Trending Page calculates trending data by day, week and month. With its new filter, users can change the time period to the one they wish to explore.Millennial Media To Acquire Mobile Ad Company Jumptap For $200M+ In Millennial Stock
Aug 13, 8:13PM
Millennial Media just announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Jumptap, a deal that brings together two well-known mobile ad companies. The acquisition press release describes the deal as "a predominantly stock transaction," with Jumptap shareholders to receive 24.6 million shares in publicly-traded Millennial, giving them ownership of about 22.5 percent of the company. (At the current price, those shares would be worth about $209 million.)Yammer Releases Open Source SDKs For iOS And Windows Phone
Aug 13, 8:08PM
Today Yammer announced two new public, open source SDKs for its social enterprise communications service, one for Windows Phone 8, and one for iOS. Android, for now, remains on the outside of the Yammer love circle. If you are the developing sort, you can dig into the SDKs here.CloudPhysics Raises $10M From Kleiner Perkins For Simulating What The Cloud Might Do In That Old-Fashioned Data Center
Aug 13, 7:49PM
CloudPhysics has raised a new $10 million round for its service that collects and analyzes virtual machine data from data centers to simulate potential problems when adding cloud capabilities. The Series B funding was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Previous investors also participated in the funding. The Mayfield Fund, VMware Co-Founders Diane Greene and her husband Mendel Rosenblum, who are all previous investors, also participated in the round. A number of angel investors also made investments. Cloud Physics raised a $2.5 million Series A around this time last year.Eleven-Year-Old Worth1000 Faces Shutdown After Founder Fails To Find A Programmer
Aug 13, 7:44PM
In the pantheon of web-famousness, Worth1000 is up there with Fark and SomethingAwful when it comes to popular image sharing sites. With little of the crassness of 4chan, Worth1000 allowed users to compete against each other in Photoshop contests where they modified photos to match a theme.Now With 7 Million Installs, Drippler's Personalized Mobile News App Gets An Upgrade
Aug 13, 7:08PM
Drippler, the makers of mobile apps for iOS and Android which serve as a hub for personalized news about your device, its features, as well as new mobile applications, is launching a revamped version of its service for Android, now optimized for Android tablets. The Drippler app has been installed over 7 million times to date, and this release is aimed at expanding that footprint even further. It also delivers a set of new features, including support for categories, search, favorites and improvements to its personalization technology.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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