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A Listed SocialGO Raises $2.2m On $24m Valuation Ahead Of Needed Re-launch
Feb 10, 8:57AM
SocialGO, the community building platform which in the past positioned itself against the likes of Ning, has secured $2.2m in funding from nine institutions in its largest fund raising to date. Since the startup is already floated on the AIM public market in the UK, the fund round was lead by First Columbus, its secondary broker, and values the company at $24m. Prior to this it raised $800,000 from Veddis Ventures. 
Abe's Market, Natural Products Retailer, Closes $3.4 Million Series A Investment
Feb 10, 8:08AM
A Chicago-area startup that sells natural consumer goods online, Abe's Market, closed a $3.4 million series A investment the company announced today. Accel Partners led the round, joined by the company's earlier investors, Index Ventures and several angels. Abe's Market calls itself the equivalent of an online farmer's market, and focuses on selling non-food category natural products like beauty, bath, baby or cleaning items, though it also sells some packaged comestibles... 
Google's Boutiques.com Adds Fashion Trends Data, Designer Analytics
Feb 10, 7:32AM
As New York Fashion Week ramps up, Google's fashion-forward designer search engine Boutiques.com is adding a few new features today. Launched last November, Boutiques.com is both a search engine for all things fashion and is a personalized storefront of boutiques curated by celebrites, stylists, and designers. Powered by Like.com's visual search engine technology, the site allows users to create their own boutiques and receive personalized clothes and accessory recommendations based on preferences and actions. Google says that since the site's launch, it has been collecting data on which products are popular and "trendy" and has mined this data for designers on the site. Designer Analytics is a tool that gives retailers and designers insight into how their products are searched and shopped. Specifically, the tool will be able to show which colors and styles are most liked or hated. Designers can also see how their stats compare to similar brands. It's similar in some ways to an analytics feature that virtual styling site Polyvore launched recently.
The Many Brilliant Layers Of Vic Gundotra's Nokia-Exposing, Microsoft-Bashing Tweet
Feb 10, 5:05AM
You have to love Twitter and you have to love Vic Gundotra. This morning, the Google Vice President decided he was going to have some fun on Twitter. "#feb11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle".," he tweeted. To anyone outside of the tech space, that sounds like gibberish. Hell, even to many of those in the tech space, that seems like a completely random thing to say. Except it wasn't random. It was cool and calculated. The February 11 date that Gundotra references is clearly meant to signify Nokia's annual Capital Markets Day, which takes place this Friday, the 11th, in London. There, new CEO (and former Microsoft president) Stephen Elop is expected to announce radical changes to the company's plan and vision. For weeks, rumors have swirled that Nokia may ally with either Microsoft or Google going forward in the smartphone business. Gundotra's tweet this morning made it very clear who Nokia is going with. The other guys.
Twitter Finds Itself Between A Facebook And A Google
Feb 10, 4:45AM
In a post deceptively titled "Twitter as a Tech Bubble Barometer" the WSJ drops a lot of of information about the micro-messaging service, namely that Twitter is talking to both Facebook and Google about a possible acquisition according to those pesky people familiar with the matter who can't seem to keep their mouths shut. So what did the people familiar with the matter blab about this time? Even though it made $45 million in revenue (Promoted Trends has been selling out!), Twitter lost money this year, due to hiring and buying datacenters.
Former Apple and Lucasfilm Exec Joins HP To Help Bolster The webOS App Catalog
Feb 10, 3:09AM
After HP unveiled the Pre3, Veer, and TouchPad at their big webOS event today, we figured they were pretty much done with news for the day. Turns out, they had at least one more tid-bit to share. We're at their post-announcement webOS developer gathering, where they've just announced a new hire: Richard Kerris, joining as VP of Worldwide Developer Relations. Prior to jumping on board with HP, Kerris spent 3 years as the CTO of Lucasfilm. And prior to that? He was an Apple Exec.
Instapaper Releases A Full API — With A Brilliant, Unique Twi$t
Feb 10, 2:49AM
I love Instapaper. Blah blah blah — you all know that by now. But today developer Marco Arment has released something significant that could alter the way the service is used: a full API. And perhaps even more interesting is how he's released it. In his blog post on the matter, Arment dives into his tough decision making process when it comes to the API. The main problem is that unlike a lot of startups, Instapaper has taken no funding so they have to be profitable each month or they'll go out of business. That makes an API hard because the core idea behind it is usually to allow people to use your service (including your servers) without actually visiting your ad-driven site and/or paying for your app. So Arment had to come up with a solution.
A Sneak Peek At Paygr, A Marketplace For Buying And Selling Your Talents Locally
Feb 10, 2:26AM
Are you looking to hire a trainer or sell your own expertise as, say, a web designer? Well look no further than Paygr, a marketplace that allows you to make money doing what you love to do. The startup, which is set to launch in 6 to 8 weeks, aims to take the best parts of PayPal, eBay, and craigslist and mash them up into something that's useful for the average consumer looking to safely pay for goods and services offered by members of their community. Here's how it will work: First, you'll go to Paygr's homepage and sign up. If you're a buyer, you'll enter your query and Paygr will serve up a list of matching sellers, each of which will have reviews left by other members (Paygr's system will pull in your social graph, allowing you to see reviews that have been left on your friends). Sellers gradually build reputations on the site, helping create a trust model.
I'll Have A Hit Of Whatever You're Smoking HP
Feb 10, 2:14AM
Earlier today HP introduced its new line of products based on the newly acquired Palm WebOS, including its iPad clone, the TouchPad. Capping off a segment of the presentation where he presented press accolades, former Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein presented the above slide from Laptop Magazine's OS Bowl boasting, "Yesterday, Laptop Magazine voted us the champion of the OS Bowl." 
LED Mania: Bridgelux Adds $21 Million Funding, Digital Lumens Goes Global
Feb 10, 12:38AM
Despite conservatives' misgivings about Whitehouse moves to retire old, incandescent light bulb technology (and its energy inefficiency) the market for light emitting diodes and efficient lighting systems continues to gather steam. In the latest spate of milestones: LED-chip-makers Bridgelux scored another $21 million investment; and Digital Lumens attained certifications that will help it export its energy-efficient lighting systems to Mexico and Canada. 
Hands On Gallery: HP Pre 3
Feb 09, 11:11PM
Whew! It was one heckuva long presentation, but HP just pulled the curtain back on 3 brand new webOS devices: the TouchPad, the Veer, and the Pre 3. We bolted outside to give'm a glance and they were already getting pretty mobbed, but we managed to sneak off a few shots regardless. We've got a bit of alone time scheduled with these devices later today, so expect more photos and videos then — plus, of course, our hands-on impressions. In the mean time, we'll say this: that new keyboard? It seems so much more.. what's the word? Oh, right — usable.
Yes, Apple Is Lining Up For A "Surprise" This Fall. And Yes, It's Likely An "iPad 3″
Feb 09, 11:05PM
The following may sound a little crazy considering that the iPad 2 has not even been acknowledged or introduced by Apple yet. But from what we're hearing, the next iteration of the iPad — let's call it "iPad 3" to keep it simple — may be coming along sooner than people realize. Earlier today, HP held a big event in San Francisco to unveil their latest products based around the webOS software that they acquired when they bought Palm last year. One of these devices is a tablet, called TouchPad. The device looks like an iPad, but it has better specs. As such, some are already wondering if it's a possible "iPad-killer". Of course, the main problem is that the planned availability of the TouchPad isn't until this summer. (And worse, there's absolutely no word on pricing.). Then Daring Fireball's John Gruber decided to quickly weigh in.
Egyptian Protester Memorial Goes Viral On 1000Memories
Feb 09, 10:55PM
Toronto entrepreneur Mahmoud Hashim had seen 1000Memories, a free service that builds profile pages for people who have passed away, on YCombinator's Hacker News and thought that the product could be utilized to build a group memorial for those killed in Egypt's #Jan25 protests. He offered to build the memorial himself. Moved by the Mahmoud Hashim's plea, the 1000Memories co-founders instead stayed up all night creating Egypt Remembers, the first ever 1000Memories group page. Hashim woke up to the page already made on Friday morning.
Exclusive Video Of INQ's Facebook Phone
Feb 09, 9:47PM
Remember all that talk about a Facebook phone? And by that I mean an Android phone built by various cell phone manufacturers optimized for social experiences with Facebook's help. If you want a refresher, read this interview Mark Zuckerberg gave TechCrunch last September where he explains Facebook's mobile strategy. One of the first partners planning to come out with a Facebook phone will be INQ Mobile, a British startup owned by Hutchison Whampoa (HTC is also working on its own Facebook phone). INQ channel manager Andrew Bennet came by my office today to show me a pre-production version of the phone, which will be called the INQ Cloud Touch (INQ is also developing a version with a qwerty keyboard called the INQ Cloud Q). In the exclusive video I shot above, Bennet takes us through the main features of the phone. It looks a bit like a white iPhone, except front and center is a visual feed from your Facebook News feed. It lets you flip through the latest status updates, photos, videos, and shared articles from your friends, bringing up media from the underlying links in Flipboard fashion. 
Twitter's Latest TPS Report Has The Super Bowl Topping The World Cup In Tweets — But Not New Year's
Feb 09, 9:08PM
If you're reading this and you watched the Super Bowl on Sunday, I'm betting you probably checked Twitter during the game between one and a thousand times. How do I know? Because Twitter just released some data today about tweets during the game — and they're huge. Specifically, there were a number of points during the game that set a new record for tweets per second (TPS — yes, they call it "TPS") for a sporting event. The previous record of 3,283 TPS during last year's World Cup was first eclipsed during the Packers' first touchdown of the day. Then it kept getting passed on every subsequent score (except the Steeler's field goal), before finally exploding during the half-time show. 
Compete Is In A Total Nosedive, According To Compete
Feb 09, 8:35PM
When it comes to public-facing web analytics, basically, they all suck. We in the press are sometimes forced to use tools like Alexa and Compete for comparison's sake, but using either for absolute numbers is extremely flawed and basically worthless. Naturally, those companies always disagree with us when we say such things. But a new bit of information may put that disagreement to the test. The Compete chart for Compete.com is perfect. If the chart is to be believed, Compete is in a total tailspin. According to their data, they've dropped from about 750K unique visitors in January 2010 to roughly 250K in December 2010. The numbers for total visits are even worse (dropping from 3.25 million to about 750K). Both have been in decline every month since March. And neither shows signs of stopping.
Y Combinator Backed Chirply is Threadless for Paper Goods
Feb 09, 7:42PM
You're probably getting tired of going back to Hallmark time and time again for the same staid cards you've been sending granny for years, and I'd be surprised if you're not running out of occasions that demand a card bearing a cheesy one-liner or a sappy stanza of poetry. Thankfully, YC-backed Chirply, which launches this week, is breathing some new life into greeting cards -- and notebooks, and wrapping paper -- by creating a crowd-sourced community where designers can submit fresh ideas for paper goods. Users like you can then vote on your favorite designs, whereupon the ideas that receive the most votes are made champion and turned into real, live products and printed by the Chirply team. But Chirply isn't just copy-and-pasting ye olde crowdsourcing model onto the paper industry, it's offering crowdsourcing with a financial incentive. The designers whose ideas collect the most votes are awarded a $300 prize, plus an additional 10 cents for each item that is printed with their design.
HP Announces The Palm TouchPad
Feb 09, 6:44PM
It's official. Palm's new WebOS state is device is called the Palm Touchpad. It has a 9.7-inch screen, front 1.3-megapixel camera, and comes in 16 or 32GB models. It runs a 1.2GHz Snapdragon Processor processor and the screen resolution is 1024x768. Designed by the "hundreds of talented programmers" on the WebOS team, the TouchPad is HP's second slate of the new decade, the first being the HP Slate 500. 
Sparrow, The Beautiful Mac Email Client Flies Into The Mac App Store — And Into Funding
Feb 09, 6:43PM
Back in October of last year, we wrote about Sparrow, a beautiful new mail client for the Mac. But whereas most mail clients are now web-based, Sparrow decided it was time to focus on making a great native email experience once again. And today that gamble appears to be paying off. Sparrow 1.0 has just launched in the Mac App Store and it has immediately shot to the number one paid app in many countries around the world, including the U.S. And that feat says a lot for Sparrow, considering the app is $9.99. But it's absolutely worth it. As we wrote in our initial review, Sparrow is a Gmail-centric client that brings a Tweetie for Mac (now Twitter for Mac) look and feel to email. At the time, it was still in beta, and we noted that there were some performance issues. But most of those have now been smoothed out and a whole range of new features have been added, including full support for Gmail labels.
HP Announces The Veer, A Credit Card Sized webOS Device
Feb 09, 6:37PM
Hot on the heels of the Touchpad, we have Palm's new WebOS phone, the HP Veer. It's about the size of a credit card, but has all the functionality of a full webOS device. It's got HSPA+, 8GB of storage inside, and a Snapdragon 7230 CPU running at 800MHz. 
Convore Wants To Be The Easiest Group Communication App Yet
Feb 09, 6:07PM
Many startups and companies have tackled realtime communications in a group setting, including Yammer, Google, Yahoo, and even Facebook. And now there's one more jumping into the mix. Today, Y Combinator-backed Convore, the brainchild of Pownce founder Leah Culver, and Mochi Media developers Eric Florenzano and Eric Maguire, is launching a dead-simple group communication platform that is definitely worth a look. Convore allows anyone to create a group (both public or private) and invite members to join via email. Invited users can click on the sent link (here's a special TechCrunch group), and create a profile and join. You can also connect via Facebook and Twitter.
Gevo, A Branson-Backed Biofuels Maker, Goes Public And Nets $95.7 Million
Feb 09, 6:03PM
A Richard Branson- and Khosla Ventures-backed biofuels and biochemicals maker, Gevo, raised $107 million, netting an estimated $95.7 million after expenses and underwriting discounts, in an initial public offering yesterday. The company's technology and chemical processes use yeast biocatalysts to make isobutanol from sugar. Gevo's biofuels and biochemicals will offer an alternative to petroleum-derived butanol, and in some cases, other biofuels like ethanol. 
Mitch Kapor Leads $600,000 Angel Round In Video Transcription Startup SpeakerText
Feb 09, 5:58PM
SpeakerText, a scrappy startup that automates video transcriptions through a combination of clever algorithms and crowdsourcing, raised $600,000 from a group of angel investors led by Mitch Kapor. The other investors include Dave McClure's 500 Startups, Crowdflower CEO Lukas Biewald, Roy Rodenstein, Chris Yeh, and ex-Googler Georges Harik The challenge most publishers face with video is that it is still hard to find. SpeakerText addresses this issue by automatically transcribing every video in a SEO-friendly format so that videos turn into searchable transcripts. The videos are put through a speech-to-text engine to start, and then broken up into chunks which are sent to remote online transcribers who fix any errors. 
Live From The HP Palm webOS Event
Feb 09, 5:37PM
It's time. It's been nearly 9 months since HP acquired Palm back in April of last year, and they're finally ready to show what they've been working on behind the scenes ever since. We're live in San Francisco, bringing back all the up-to-the-second details as they happen. Join us for our liveblog after the jump.
Say Hello To The Palm Touchpad
Feb 09, 5:09PM
It's official: HP/Palm is releasing a new tablet called the Touchpad. Precentral has some hot news about this new 10-inch Palm slate. It is a touchscreen device running WebOS. It weighs 1.5 pounds and 13mm thick and has a front webcam as well as up to 64GB of storage. Robert Scoble, of all people, also leaked something about the "littlest phone" he's ever seen, a new Palm Phone that is as big as a pebble.
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