Hi there!
Here's the latest feed from TechCrunch.
Add feeds@feed2email.net to your contact list to make sure you receive all your emails
Make sure to visit feed2email.net to get more feeds sent to your inbox.
To find out which feeds you are subscribed to, or to get further help, just reply to this email.
With New Business Suite & Samsung Partnership, Mobile Security Company Lookout Prepares To Take On The Enterprise
Sep 04, 4:01AM
Lookout, a mobile security company which previously focused on consumer protections and anti-malware services, is today taking a step to expand its footprint further with the launch of a new, standalone product for business. Arriving later this year, Lookout for Business intends to allow larger organizations the ability to secure mobile devices attaching to the network - like the employee-owned smartphones and tablets arriving via BYOD (bring-your-own-device) programs.In An Apparent Bug, Some Twitter Users Report Avatar Photos Being Replaced With Default 'Egg'
Sep 04, 2:44AM
A number of Twitter users apparently noticed Tuesday evening that their personal photo avatars had been abruptly replaced by the default "egg" image that accompanies profiles from users who haven't added a custom photo of themselves. We've reached out to Twitter for comment on the issue, what's behind it, and how it will be resolved. We will update this post with information as soon as we hear back.RocketSpace CEO Duncan Logan Talks Expansion Plans And What 'Office-As-A-Service' Actually Means
Sep 04, 12:51AM
RocketSpace, a San Francisco office company that has hosted companies like Uber, Zaarly, Podio, and Pocket Gems (though not always the main team), recently moved into a new, bigger space — two spaces, actually, one for early-stage startups and one for more mature companies. The move seemed like a good opportunity to both tour the new office and talk to founder and CEO Duncan Logan about San Francisco real estate, his future plans, and his description of RocketSpace as an "office-as-a-service". To be honest, I went in suspecting that "office-as-a-service" was just a fancy way of saying "real estate company with other services". However, Logan rattled off a number of other programs that Rocket Space has built on top of its desk/office rental business, including corporate innovation/partnerships, RocketU training, and the startup accelerator. As those other services grow, he said that revenue from rentals is becoming "a smaller and smaller percentage every month" of RocketSpace's total business. Logan added:
For Authors, Amazon's Kindle MatchBook Offers Plenty Of Upside
Sep 04, 12:01AM
Today, Amazon introduced a brand new model of its Kindle Paperwhite e-book reader, which looks pretty nice. But the bigger announcement was a brand new program called MatchBook, which allows authors and publishers to offer heavily discounted Kindle editions of their print books past and future. After digging into the requirements and features of the program, it seems evident that this is going to be a fairly nice program for existing print and Kindle authors. “I don’t see a downside, at least for me, since, as you say the royalty rate stays the same. It’s more sales (at least in theory),” says David Schwartz, author of Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic, “and that’s the goal.” The Kindle Matchbook program has a set of requirements for participating, but none of them seem particularly onerous, and they align philosophically with the promise of leveraging your back inventory for more revenue. In order to enroll, you simply have to be selling a physical book of some sort on Amazon, and be a member of the Kindle Direct Publishing program. We were able to confirm with Amazon that it does not require that users be a member of the more exclusive Kindle Direct Publishing Select program. This means that if you have a physical book that you’d like to sell an ‘add-on’ Kindle edition of, you’re not required to promise Amazon a period of exclusivity. KDP Select members are often limited to selling books on Amazon alone for around 90 days. The promotional prices that can be set for a book include four tiers: $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free. Enrolling a title is super simple, just visit the listing and tick a box. The low-friction nature of the opt-in is very ‘Amazon’ in execution and should drive authors to investigate the feature. Once you select a title you set your ‘Promotional List Price’ to one of the tiers. The only restriction here is that you must pick a discount that is at least half off of your regular list price. Amazon says the 50% requirement is to ensure that it’s a ‘compelling’ discount. Amazon currently has two royalty rates available, which differ in regional availability. So you’ll still get your 35% or 70% slice of that e-book sale. So a lower payday, for sure, but definitely worth it for those ‘back catalog’ folks. You might see a slow rollout of the feature becauseGraphDive Raises $2M For Social Media Analytics And Targeting
Sep 03, 11:05PM
GraphDive, a startup that uses Facebook Connect data to give businesses a better understanding of their online visitors, has raised $2 million in new funding. Co-founder and CEO Shahram Seyedin-Noor said the company allows website owners to do more with the social data that's already provided by users who log in to their sites via Connect. It analyzes a user's account activity and infers their interests and key demographic data — age, income, education, and relationship status. (In its effort to build an "interest graph" connecting related interests, Seyedin-Noor said GraphDive could be compared to Gravity, except that Gravity is focused on publishers).Lithium Raises $50M In Mezzanine Round For Online Community Development Platform
Sep 03, 11:03PM
Lithium has raised $50 million from a group of unnamed investors in what the company is calling pre-IPO mezzanine financing. Lithium will use the funding to further develop its technology platform and expand its sales and marketing. The company has raised a total of $142 million in funding. Lithium executives could not be reached for comment to discuss the funding round.
Studio 9+ Accelerator Raises $2.5 Million To Fund Its First Class of Entrepreneurs
Sep 03, 11:00PM
YouWeb founder Peter Relan's new accelerator has raised another $2.5 million in funding from several angel investors, bringing total funding for Studio 9+ to about $4.6 million. The program is also extending its application deadline to Sept. 10 to include two more companies in its first class of participants.LinkedIn To Raise Up To $1.15B To Fuel Acquisitions, "Infrastructure" Investments
Sep 03, 10:48PM
LinkedIn has filed to raise more than $1 billion by selling stock in its company to both the public, and banks that will underwrite the issuance. $1 billion will be sold to common investors, and the banks participating in the deal have the option to buy up to 15 percent of the offered shares in addition, bringing the total capital infusion to a potential $1.15 billion. In the listing, LinkedIn estimates that following the offering, its cash, equivalents, and short-term investments -- colloquially just called cash by investors -- will rise from $873.4 million to $1.85 billion. The second figure does not include the potential for the additional $150 million sale of stock to investment banks. In that case, LinkedIn would have essentially a flat $2 billion in cash.Optimizely Co-Founder Pete Koomen On Using The Art Of A/B Testing
Sep 03, 10:31PM
San Francisco startup Optimizely has had a lot of success in making A/B testing much more accessible to the masses. And along the way, Optimizely's co-founders Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen say that they've learned quite a bit themselves about the practice of A/B testing, and what it can do for websites and software products -- so much, in fact, that they decided to write a book about it, A/B Testing: The Most Powerful Way to Turn Clicks Into Customers.Amazon's AWS Command Line Tool Hits General Availability, Lets You Control 23 Services From Your Terminal
Sep 03, 10:14PM
Graphical user interfaces are great, but sometimes, the good-old command line is all you need. Amazon today announced that its command line interface for AWS has hit general availability. For a while now, Amazon Web Services has made this command line tool available as a developer preview. The tool allows developers to control 23 of AWS's services from the command line without the need to touch its somewhat convoluted web interface. Few people, of course, manage their AWS accounts from the command line, but having these tools available allows developers to automate many of their processes.Announcing The Disrupt SF Hackathon Judges And A Ton Of New Prizes (And The Very Last Batch Of Tickets!)
Sep 03, 9:58PM
The first batch of tickets for our Disrupt SF Hackathon (it's this weekend!) sold out so fast I thought something had gone wrong. We've released a few batches since, each bigger than the last… and yet, each one has sold out almost immediately. You lot are clearly pretty damned excited about this thing, so we went ahead and made it even better. (Psst.. here are the very last tickets)Sony Hopes You'll Carry A Lens In Your Pocket
Sep 03, 8:49PM
Remember that time when your smartphone camera just wasn't good enough? That time when you wanted a picture that was just slightly better? You know, the time you lugged a pocket camera to your kid's karate lesson or significant other's colonoscopy. Well. Sony will soon have a product for you, friend! The Sony QX10 and QX100 are leaking from all corners of the Internet folllowing their surprise appearance last month. The products are essentially 2/3 of a camera designed to connect to a smartphone wirelessly or through a dock. Sony has created a whole new system that replaces a phone's camera with a new sensor and glass. For better or worse, of course.After $258M Google Ventures And TPG Investment, Uber Hires Finance, Business, And Growth Execs
Sep 03, 8:31PM
After announcing a $258 million funding round from Google Ventures and TPG, Uber is revealing a number of new hires today in finance, business and international growth at the executive level.Mobile Calendar App Event Book Gets A New Design And 'Location Book' Features
Sep 03, 8:29PM
While startups are trying to replace your mobile calendar by making it smarter, there's a new-ish iOS app called Event Book that seems to be built around the belief that what calendars really need is to become simpler and easier to use. Created by Abhinay Ashutosh, Event Book launched earlier this year. Since then, Ashutosh said the app has been downloaded more than 60,000 times, and he said that he has incorporated "user feedback from tens of thousands of folks" to release version 2.0 today.Why Microsoft Had No Choice But To Purchase Nokia's Handset Business
Sep 03, 8:05PM
The news that Microsoft has purchased substantial assets from Nokia came as a surprise, but perhaps it shouldn't have. The underlying reason that Microsoft had little choice but to buy Nokia is plain: Nokia had too much control over the Windows Phone platform, and Microsoft could not afford to lose its primacy over its mobile efforts.Announcing Your Disrupt SF Finals Judges: Marissa Mayer, Roelof Botha, Keith Rabois, David Lee, Chris Dixon And Michael Arrington
Sep 03, 7:55PM
You'll see some startups trying to solve big problems in networking, business software and security next week during our Battlefield competition at Disrupt SF -- industries which at first glance may seem boring or overly complex but are extremely important to the world. You'll also see Battlefield companies working in more unusual areas, like government and agriculture, where there's huge potential but many challenges to creating a business.Keen On… Smart Machines: The Next Big Thing For Smart Human Beings
Sep 03, 7:00PM
"Average is over", says economist Tyler Cowen in his new book of the same name. And success and failure in a world dominated by digital technology, he says, will be defined by our relationship to smart machines. If our skills "complement" smart machines, Cowen writes in Average Is Over, we are likely to be successful; if not, he warns Luddites, "you may want to address that mismatch".Send In Your Questions For Ask A VC With Spark Capital's Bijan Sabet And Trinity Ventures' Patricia Nakache
Sep 03, 7:00PM
This week on TechCrunch TV's Ask A VC show, we are fortunate to have two guests in the studio—Spark Capital's Bijan Sabet and Trinity Ventures' Patricia Nakache. You can submit questions for our guests either in the comments or here and we'll ask them during the show.Burning Man Founder Is Cool With Capitalism, And Silicon Valley Billionaires
Sep 03, 6:45PM
“We’re not building a Marxist society,” jokes Burning Man Founder Larry Harvey in response to a series of recent stories detailing the annual festival’s multi-million-dollar balance sheet and its buddy-buddy relationship with Silicon Valley billionaires. More seriously, he says, “you can make a lot of money and do good with it. Elon Musk has made a lot of money.” Musk and his elite brethren have become part of the changing face of the week-long rave fest in the Nevada desert, known for its principle of “radical inclusion” and the tens of thousands of Bohemians who load up broken campers to let their inner free-spirit out during a retreat from the button-down corporate world. Mark Zuckerberg reportedly helicoptered in to hand out grilled cheese. Larry Page, who was spotted one year donning a skin-tight silver onesie, said he hired Chairman Eric Schmidt, in part, because he was a Burner alum. Musk reportedly first dreamed up the solar-powered project that would eventually become his idea for the super-fast transit system, Hyperloop, on a road trip to Burning Man in 2004. An early Tesla prototype, reportedly captured in 2007. In recent years, Burning Man ticket prices have soared and Silicon Valley-themed camps are awarded with sizable real-estate on the desert campus. So what does an art and music festival –- made famous for its drug-fueled, 24-hour mobile dance clubs and its elaborately dressed half-naked artists — want with millions of dollars and the tech elite? I sat down with Harvey on the last day of Burning Man, surrounded by the hymn of de-toxing party monsters deconstructing their themed camps with fork lifts, to find out. Burning Elite “The opportunities of all these folks coming out who have command of wealth is to help us in extending our culture throughout the world,” explains Harvey. “A typical pattern is that they might stay for a day or two, and then it dawns on them that there’s a manifold of profound things to be gained.” Harvey and Google execs are known to wax philosophical over dinner at his personal camp. As sappy as Harvey’s perception sounds, the experience evidently inspires tech founders’ affinity for radical experimentation. "Maybe we can set aside part of the world," Google CEO Larry Page recently mused. "I like going to Burning Man. As a technologist maybe we need some safe places where we can try things and not have to deploy to the entireMicrosoft's Nokia Purchase Torches $16.6 Billion In Market Cap, Almost As Much As Ballmer's Exit Added
Sep 03, 6:29PM
On the news that Microsoft will purchase substantial assets from Nokia, including its handset business and intellectual property, company investors have discarded the stock, sending it down 6 percent in regular trading. At current trade, that decline represents $16.6 billion in market capitalization, a stunning repudiation of the plan by investors. To put the decline in perspective, when current CEO Steve Ballmer announced that he will relinquish his role at Microsoft, the company picked up $18 billion in value.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.
To stop all future emails from feed2email.net you can reply to this email with STOP in the subject line. Thanks
