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Google Employee Redirects Hiybbprqag.com To Google Jobs Page
Feb 04, 5:03AM
In what is perhaps the most brilliant move in the whole Bing copies Google search results fiasco, it looks like Google Taiwan employee Chih-Chung Chang has redirected http://www.hiybbprqag.com, a URL inspired by the nonsense terms Google used to bait Bing, straight to the Google Jobs page. Search Engine Land points out that that Chang registered the domain on February 1st, the day the story first broke, using the Google Taiwan office address. A quick Google search reveals that a person by the name Chih-Chung Chang is a Google Taiwan employee and another search in ironically Bing (after Google mysteriously failed to bring up more informative results) reveals his google.com email. 
Like Any Good Hack, The Daily: Indexed Creates A Feature That Is Needed
Feb 04, 3:57AM
One thing about The Daily that bugged me from the second I first laid eyes on the iPad newspaper that launched yesterday is that there is no one place where you can see a simple list of every story in the issue. There is a table of contents, but it shows only ten featured stories. Like any good hack, The Daily: Indexed creates a feature that is missing from the original but is deeply needed. The Tumblr blog put together by Andy Baio creates a complete table of contents for The Daily. 
Too Lazy Or Busy To Read? Topicmarks Summarizes Long Texts For You
Feb 04, 2:52AM
Ever come across a lengthy Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker essay that all your unemployed friends will probably be talking about later, but you simply don't have time in between 
The Latest Verizon iPhone Commercial Strikes At AT&T: "Yes, I Can Hear You Now."
Feb 04, 2:01AM
We've made note of both the first Verizon-made iPhone commercial and then the first Apple-made Verizon iPhone commercial. Both are effective and interesting in different ways. But neither takes a shot at AT&T. But a new Verizon one that has just started airing on television, does. At least, indirectly. The new commercial, which we've embedded below compliments of quick-with-the-TiVo TechCrunch reader Kacy Fortner, has a very different tone than the initial "clocks" Verizon commercial. In this one, there is triumphant music playing as glimpses of the iPhone 4 are shown. It almost seems as if it's meant to conjure up Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Google Unveils Chrome 9 And Credits Reddit For Their Help Fixing It
Feb 04, 1:41AM
Google has made a big deal recently about not making a big deal about the version numbers of Chrome. "It's just a number" is the basic take these days. In fact, they care barely be even bothered to announce them at all sometimes. But today, they did actually take some time to acknowledge the latest version — and a funny partner who made it all possible. Google has officially rolled out Chrome 9, meaning the stable version of the browser has been updated to that iteration. They don't make any mention of the number in the blog post about the update, but trust me, it's version 9. Instead, Google focuses on the three new major features available to all in this build: WebGL, Chrome Instant, and the Chrome Web Store.
CarWoo Launches CarWoo Version 2 To Keep Car Buyers Even More Informed
Feb 04, 1:13AM
YC-funded CarWoo is announcing its Version 2 launch today. In the same space as TrueCar, CarWoo is a reverse auction marketplace for cars i.e. it makes car dealers bid for your business and focuses on covering all aspects of car buying transactions up to purchase. In the true spirit of a marketplace, Carwoo saves consumers an average of $3763 off the sticker price by making dealers compete against each other. Says founder Tommy McClung, "There's thousands of different things you have to think about when you're buying, and our plan is to make that process as easy as possible from start to finish.". In the traditional car buying process a consumer would have multiple dealers, doing what CarWoo does on their own. 
Dogs, Unicorns, And Mysterious Gongs: Inside Yelp's 5-Star Pad
Feb 04, 12:24AM
Last week we debuted a new show on TechCrunch TV that took us on a whirlwind tour of Scribd, the popular document sharing website. Feedback to that episode of was extremely positive, so we're not wasting any time in bringing you another awesome tour of a hot tech company. This week's blinged-out pad: Yelp. We're still taking suggestions for more companies to check out, so feel free to leave your requests in the comments (be sure to tell us why it's a great office!). And yes, we're definitely interested in scoping out startups that don't necessarily have millions in funding — provided your office has some character. We've also gotten a bunch of requests to check out offices in other parts of the country (I hear you, NYC), so we'll do our best to get out there too.
Boxcar Pushes Towards The Future With Realtime Notifications On The Web
Feb 04, 12:19AM
I love Boxcar. In a world where the iOS Push Notification system is pretty much a nightmare, it allows me to sleep easy. We've written about it a number of times before, but essentially, it's an app that allows you to get Push Notifications for a wide range of services — and more importantly, it allows you to organize those messages in a manageable manner. And now their bringing that notification system to the web. The latest version of Boxcar's website launches today. You'll notice that it has been completely revamped to give users a pleasing interface that utilizes a Twitter-like two-pane stream system. But more significantly, it also now gives you notifications when new messages come in to any of the services you've tied to your Boxcar account.
Twitter Not Testing A URL Shortening Button (But Some Extension Is For Them)
Feb 04, 12:10AM
Update: Despite a number of people talking about it on Twitter, it appears that this is not an official Twitter button. How do we know? Twitter engineer Dustin Diaz responded in our comments: This has to be some sort of extension (maybe Bitly? We don't know) - this is not found in our code source.We've reached out to Twitter officially, but have yet to hear back. But I see no reason to not go with Diaz here. So, sorry for getting everyone all excited! It does appear that some extension which multiple users have installed is causing this button to appear — we're still trying to figure out which one.
Colbert On Sponsor Bing Copying Google: "hiybbprqag" Is A Word Meaning "You Got Served."
Feb 04, 12:04AM
The Google/Bing fight over search results-stealing has gone from inspiring jokes like this one on Twitter all the way to Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" last night, where Stephen Colbert took advertiser Bing to the mattresses regarding the news that the search engine had been caught copying Google's results. "For the first time ever, someone's search history has been busted for something other than porn," Colbert said.
Hey Obama, Where's the Startup Visa in the Startup America Plan? (TCTV)
Feb 03, 11:28PM
Ankur Jain is the 20-year-old founder of the Kairos Society, a group that tries to discover the world leaders of the future and bring them together for support, mentoring and networking. He swung through San Francisco in between being named one of the partner organizations for President Obama's Startup America initiative and the Kairos Society's Global Summit in New York February 25-27, no doubt feeling as light and celebratory as this picture I found on his blog. But as impressive as Jain's organization is, I had some tough questions about the viability of the President's plan. Most government initiatives to spur entrepreneurship-- on a local, national and international level-- fail spectacularly. Culturally, structurally and geographically the beltway could not be farther from Silicon Valley. Even if you believe that "replicating Silicon Valley" is feasible, it's a several-decade initiative, not something that will solve a job crisis now. 
How Google Ambushed Microsoft and Changed the Subject
Feb 03, 11:27PM
I wrote about the epic battles that are brewing between spammers and content farms—which are turning the web into a massive garbage dump—and search providers, which have to choose between profit and customer satisfaction. This is a serious problem. The content farms are "dumbing down" the web by churning out thousands of mostly low-quality articles, every day, on topics that Google tells them they can make money from. All of these players are raking in billions of dollars at our expense. I had the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion this week between Google, Microsoft, and Blekko. The event, which I emceed, was called Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box, and was organized by BigThink and Microsoft. As I joked, it seemed odd that Google was playing the role of "evil" monopolist; Microsoft, the "good" contender, whilst Blekko was a fly on the wall.
Hotmail's New Alias Feature Lets You Handle Multiple Addresses From The Same Inbox
Feb 03, 10:02PM
Ever wished you could have multiple email addresses that all routed to the same inbox, without having to set up a bunch of different accounts and forwarding options? Hotmail — yes, the email service you probably haven't looked at in years — has just added a very handy new alias feature that lets you do just this. In other words, I can now setup a Hotmail inbox that lets me seamlessly handle correspondence to both jasonkincaid@hotmail.com and JediMasterJ@hotmail.com from the same inbox — woohoo!* Aliases aren't anything new for webmail services. Hardcore Gmail users are probably familiar with the old '+' trick: if your email is jason@gmail.com, you can use a + symbol to create a variety of aliases that all go to the same place. For example, you might create jason+receipts@gmail.com, jason+deals@gmail.com, and so on — each with a different filter to route the emails to different labels (or deletes them immediately). It's not perfect, but it works decently well.
(Founder Stories) Instagram CEO: "The Best Products In The World Start Out As Features"
Feb 03, 8:57PM
If you care about startups or how hit products are made, watch the video above, which is Part II of Chris Dixon's Founder Stories conversation with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom. Instagram is of course the hot social photo app that just raised $7 million this week. Yesterday, in Part I, Systrom talked about why he decided to change the product entirely before it even launched and the stress of that launch day when the servers started to crumble. In today's video, he really goes into his Instagram's approach to making a product. "I think the best products in the world start out as features," he tells Dixon. Critics might say that Instagram is nothing more than a couple features (putting filters on photos and sharing them on social networks), he responds: "It is absolutely fair. Sure, those are features, but Twitter was just posting your status. Look at what happens when you are so specific that you can go really deep, and build a product around one feature." He points out that "often features solve a specific problem." And if you can solve a problem better than anyone else, you have the start of something that can continue to evolve
@KennethCole Sets New Bar For Social Media Stupidity [Update: And Removes Tweet]
Feb 03, 8:23PM
"We had hoped this ad would change the world but we blue it." Finally someone sees the unrest in Egypt for the marketing opportunity it truly is! I've now spent a couple hours reeling from how insensitive it was for designer Kenneth Cole to use #Cairo to publicize the availability of his spring collection online when Egypt is erupting in violence and millions were cut off from Internet communication for days. My first thought here was, uh oh, some PR person is getting fired for this, the most egregious case of hashtag surfing fail I've ever seen. But apparently the tweet came from Cole himself, signed "-KC." 
SharesPost Report: Groupon Is A Deal At $6 Billion
Feb 03, 7:54PM
Groupon recently raised $950 million at a valuation of $4.75 billion and it is talking to bankers about going public at a $15 billion valuation sometime later this year. But what is it worth right now? SharesPost, a marketplace for private stock sales, just put out a report today estimating that Groupon's is worth about $6 billion (between $5.95 billion and $6.07 billion to be exact). It arrives at that number based on its own estimates of Groupon's revenue growth and applying a multiple. (The report was prepared for SharesPost by NeXtup Research). The chart above shows the revenue estimates, going from $85 million in 2009 to $1.9 billion in 2015. The estimate for 2010 was $600 million, and for 2011 it is $920 million. These estimates are way more conservative than the $2 billion revenue run-rate we've reported previously (which would imply that Groupon will hit or surpass $2 billion in revenues this year). Of course, these numbers are only guesses since Groupon as a private company does not issue audited financials. 
LinkedIn's Next Data Dive: Professional Skills
Feb 03, 7:38PM
It's no secret that LinkedIn has been actively churning out products that allow users to leverage the massive amount of data published from the social network's 90 million professionals. Recently, LinkedIn launched the ability to create visual maps of your connections. And today, the network is allowing users to take a deeper dive into "skills" data on the platform. LinkedIn Skills allows users to search the network for a particular skill, and access "key people" within a particular skill community. You can also see data an top locations, companies, jobs, and groups related to a particular skill. And LinkedIn will show you similar skills to your search, will compare growth in professionals with these skills, and indicate which skills are trending on the network. 
Foursquare Enables First "Promoted" Venue And Badge Redemption Codes For The Super Bowl
Feb 03, 7:08PM
When it comes to making money, Twitter's approach right now is their group of Promoted Products. That is, the Promoted Tweets, Promoted Users, and Promoted Trending Topics that brands pay for in order to get more exposure. And now this coming Sunday, it looks like Foursquare will begin testing the same type of thing. Specifically, during the Super Bowl, Foursquare is going to have a "Promoted Trending Venue" for the first time. What's interesting is that it won't actually be a real venue, instead it will be "Super Bowl Sunday", which Foursquare hopes everyone will check-in to when it's placed at the very top of the "Trending Now" area within the Places area on Foursquare's mobile apps. Undoubtedly, a ton of people will. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up as the most checked-in venue of all time when all is said and done. Because again, Foursquare is promoting it across the platform.
Hipmunk's Official Round: $4.2 Million Led By Ignition And A Group Of Online Travel Experts
Feb 03, 6:31PM
About a week ago, we had heard that the travel startup Hipmunk was in the process of raising a new round of funding. Sure enough, an SEC document appeared, confirming the raise, and noting that they had secured $4.6 of a proposed $6 million round so far. When we reached out to Hipmunk, they confirmed the round, but declined to give more details. Well, now we have those details. Hipmunk has actually raised $4.2 million led by Ignition Partners. Also participating are Rich Barton (ex-CEO of Expedia), Erik Blachford (another ex-CEO of Expedia), Jim Hornthal (head of Preview Travel), Simon Breakwell (co-founder of TravelPost), and Rob Glaser (founder of Real Networks). As you can see, there's a lot of online travel experience in this group.
FindTheBest Looks Like A Winner
Feb 03, 6:23PM
Most startups don't hockey stick on traffic in the first few months after launch (it took Twitter well over a year, for example). So when they do, there's either something very special going on, or something very sneaky. FindTheBest, a comparison engine founded by DoubleClick cofounder Kevin O'Connor, is definitely surging. They launched late last year, took funding by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in December, and have been quietly growing like a weed. They have a million unique visitors a month now, the company says, and services like Compete show a definite, if early, hockey stick (disregard the actual numbers, Compete is always off, but the trajectory says something). Has the company bought any traffic? Nope, says O'Connor. It's all organic growth, with, as would be expected, lots of search engine referrals coming in. It's not a huge amount of traffic yet, but it's trending nicely and doesn't seem to be spiking just based on press (there hasn't really been any since December). Why?
Nielsen: Apple iAds More Effective Than TV Ads
Feb 03, 6:02PM
According to the soup company Campbell's, Apple iAds are twice as memorable as TV ads to the general public. The iAd probably cost Campbell's about $1 million whereas a similar TV campaign could cost a bit more than $25 million. The Campbell's campaign included a charming iPhone app as well, which could have improved the memorability of the ad. They were trying to get people to buy reduced-sodium soup, which is nice for them.
Earth Aid Raises $4 Million For Home Energy Management Platform
Feb 03, 5:58PM
Home energy management platform Earth Aid has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Point Judith Capital, the Clean Energy Venture Group, and Capital-E. Similar to EnergySavvy, Google's Powermeter and Microsoft's Hohm, Earth Aid provides consumers with information on how much electricity, water, and natural gas they use and how much they spend on these utilities.
Ascent Solar, Makers of Thin Film Modules, Get Distributors In Singapore, Malaysia, Greece
Feb 03, 5:00PM
Colorado-based Ascent Solar Technologies (NASDAQ: ASTI) — the makers of flexible, thin film modules under the brand name WaveSol — scored a distribution deal with Cyprus-based SW Solarwatt Ltd. the companies announced today. The news follows another distribution deal for Ascent Solar, with Polymer Sun a company that will resell its thin film products to solar power systems installers in Singapore and Malaysia. Government support for the development of solar power systems and business looks strong in both markets...
Storify Raises $2M From Khosla Ventures To Blend Social Media With Storytelling
Feb 03, 4:30PM
Now more than ever, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are a integral part of real-time storytelling and journalism. Launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last fall, Storify debuted its content curation platform that brought together Tweets, Facebook Status Updates, videos and more from social networking sites to create a realtime view into a story or issue. Today, the startup is announcing that it has raised $2 million in new funding from Khosla Ventures. Storify, which is still in private beta, allows you to build and embed a story around a gathering of Tweets, Flickr photos, Facebook status updates, YouTube videos and more (We should note that Twitter offers its own technology to embed Tweets). Within Storify's platform, you can simple search and drag content into your Storify story. Once you create a story with all of this curated content, you can then embed the actual story in your blog or content management system via single like of Javascript. 
SkyGrid Unleashes Social Messaging And Aggregation Platform For Brands, Groups And Celebrities
Feb 03, 4:00PM
SkyGrid, a startup that offers a powerful business news aggregator, is deviating slightly from the content model into social today. SkyGrid is launching Groups, a social messaging platform that connects conversations people are having all over the web – on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others, by topic or 'group.' SkyGrid Groups are pipelines of real-time, public information about a topic, sourced from news sites, Twitter, Facebook, brands and more. Using SkyGrid's patented "stream-browsing" technology, Groups will aggregate mentions, photos, news, videos and more from hundreds of services. A group's creator can filter which videos, Tweets, status updates, or other content they want to include in the group. Users can join groups to follow the real-time conversation around certain topics (but have to be approved by the Group's creator).
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