Tech/Productivity Feed Mix

UNDERDOG: Google Android Smashes Apple iPhone in Reader Vote

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:20 GMT

We've been matching up popular web services, applications and mobile apps against each other in heated one-on-one battles here in our weekly Faceoff Series. Last week Microsoft Office bested Google Docs in a head to head race for the title of office suite champion.

This week we turned our attention to a rather timely battle being waged on the mobile front, between Apple's still wildly-selling iPhone platform and Google's slower to boil Android mobile operating system. Apparently the latter has been gaining some ground, resulting in our first unexpected upset victory in the Faceoff series.

… Google Android is the winning platform by a more than 2:1 margin. Out of 5045 total votes, Android walked away with 3323 of them or 66%, while the iPhone platform only netted 1494 or 30%. The tie vote included 228 or 5% who just couldn't choose between them. Many people cited the openness of the platform and third-party development process as well as Android's versatility, being able to be put to use not just on phones but also netbooks, tablet devices, eReaders and more.

Still, given the popularity of the iPhone we were a little surprised by these results. Are you? Let us know in the comments.

Web Faceoff: Overall Results

Week 1:
- Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome
- WINNER: Firefox, 4600 votes (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes)

Week 2:
- Tumblr vs. Posterous
- WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes)

Week 3:
- Pandora vs. Last.fm
- WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes)

Week 4:
- Twitter vs. Facebook
- WINNER: Facebook, 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes)

Week 5:
- WordPress vs. Typepad
- WINNER: WordPress, 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes)

Week 6:
- Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard
- WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes)

Week 7:
- TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop
- WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes)

Week 8:
- Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs
- WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)

Week 9:
- Apple iPhone vs. Google Android
- WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes)

Reviews: Android, Chrome, Facebook, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, Google Docs, Mozilla Firefox, Pandora, Posterous, Seesmic Desktop, Tumblr, TweetDeck, Twitter, TypePad, WordPress

Tags: android, apple, Google, iphone, Mobile 2.0, web faceoff

CrunchGear 2009 Gift Guide: Peripherals

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:00 GMT

Peripherals, they say, are the spice of life. Well, maybe they don't say that, but they do say it about variety, and peripherals add variety to your computing life. If you're reading this on a stock HP desktop, clicking on links with the mouse that came with it, and trusting your data to that 512MB USB stick they gave you at work, then you should consider accessorizing.

Getting To The SuperTweet: Speedi.ly Classifies The Real Time Web

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:33 GMT

Keith Teare was hanging around the Real-Time CrunchUp today showing off his newest project – Speedi.ly.

What does Speedi.ly do? One thing, very well and at scale. Speedi.ly takes a piece of content, or grabs the content from a URL, and analyzes it. It does this very fast and it outputs some key data. Speedi.ly tells you the language of the content, categorizes it (topics, keywords), and additional metadata. This metadata payload is exactly what Robert Scoble is talking about with his SuperTweet idea.

Here's what Speedi.ly returns for this story we wrote on the Skype/eBay sale:

Speedi.ly successfully categorizes the story as about technology. Not bad for on the fly and human-free categorization. You'll see the field for entities as well, which is currently blank. Speedi.ly will soon turn that on as well.

Now check out the results for this article from the SF Chronicle, properly categorizing it under sports:

Why is this useful? Most URLs passed around today on Twitter and Facebook are completely metadata free. Search engines like Topsy are forced to look at the text in the Tweet or status message, if any, for context on what the URL is about.

Even Digg and Delicious rely on data entered in by humans to categorize URLs. With a service like Speedi.ly, those services can create a sort of real time page rank on the fly.

If you want to try it out yourself, go to http://classify.speedi.ly/fun and us login:customer and password: logmein. Note that this isn't going to be a huge wow moment for most users, but potential partners will be able to see what Speedi.ly is capable of.

There are a couple of other services sniffing around the same space as Speedi.ly. Factery, which we wrote about earlier this week, looks at shared URLs and pulls out key facts. And Thompson Reuters has OpenCalais, which has 18,000 customers.

I interviewed Keith this afternoon about the service on video. It's embedded below. He also mentions that Speedi.ly is already working with a partner to categorize URLs on the fly.

Disclosure: I'm friends with and have had business relationships with both founders – Keith Teare and Louis Monier. And Keith is a shareholder in TechCrunch.

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Fido Factor Finds Dog-Friendly Places in Your City

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:31 GMT

This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Fido Factor

Quick Pitch: Fido Factor is a dog-specific local search and review site and iPhone app built for dog owners. It's a “Yelp for dogs.”

Genius Idea: We dog owners love our canines: it's really that simple. We raise them, feed them, play with them, sleep with them, and fall in love with them. We want to take them almost everywhere we go too, but that's where you start running into problems.

The problem is also simple: there aren't a lot of places where you can take your dog. It's only appropriate to bring your pup to certain restaurants, parks, and hotels, but it's practically impossible to know which places are OK for your loyal companion.

That's where Fido Factor comes in. The site calls itself “the ultimate guide to dog-friendly locations.” Its purpose is really clear: to tell you where you can bring your dog in your city. Fido Factor goes beyond that, though, with a well-designed website and companion iPhone app.

Fido Factor compiles a user-generated list of dog-friendly locations. Currently, it's only available in four cities: Boston, San Francisco, New York City, and Portland, but that list is growing. Simply search for a location type (i.e. restaurant) and you'll find a list of dog-friendly locales, along with ratings, reviews, and a filled-in Google Map. It really is a lot like Yelp, but for dog lovers.

There are few other cool features to note. The biggest one is the Fido Factor iPhone app, which not only tells you about nearby locations for your best friend, but even has a feature called “Pooch Pics,” where you can take a picture at a location and upload it for all to see on the website. The website also boasts Facebook Connect integration.

Fido Factor is still small, and it is very simple, but it really solves a constant issue for dog owners effectively. Finding a place to gather with your dog-loving friends has never been so easy.

Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

Reviews: PHP, Yelp

Tags: bizspark, dogs, Fido Factor

The Ellerdale Project Mines The Semantic Web To Help You Make Sense Of Real-Time Streams

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:30 GMT

Extracting meaning from the Web is a difficult undertaking. Keyword search skims the surface of contextual meaning that is locked in Web pages, Tweets and feeds. That's where semantic search comes in. The semantic web deals with looking beyond simple links that make up the web to understand a deeper meaning and context behind that content. The Ellerdale Project, which launched in alpha this past week, is hoping to add context to search by using semantic technology to power a real-time search platform.

Ellerdale mines the real-time stream, including Tweets, RSS and the, to identify topics, messages and articles that link together based on content, not keyword. So If you looked up Sarah Palin on Ellerdale's site, you'd see a semantic graph of related content, such as Oprah Winfrey (Palin just appeared on Oprah a few days ago), The Republican Party and John McCain.

The data on the site is mostly collected from Wikipedia, Freebase, Twitter, RSS, and by crawling the web. Ellerdale then analyzes and index the data to identify topics in text. Using this information, Ellderdale will show you the latest tweets, RSS articles and trending URLs, organized by topic. The site also analyzes trends in Tweets and feeds to display trending topics and topic clusters organized by categories (i.e. politics, sports, style).

For now you can only see topics on the site and cannot actually search for any keyword. While Ellderdale's platform is still a work in progress, it's already caught the eye of notable angel investor Ron Conway, who has made an investment in the startup. Startups and companies using the semantic web for search is steadily growing. Microsoft bought Powerset for $100 million to gain semantic search expertise. Hakia, NetBase, Textwise, Twine and other startups are also working on semantic search.

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This Week On TechCrunch: Real-time distractions, Indian outsourcing, rumours, layoffs and Scoble’s brave new world of tweets

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:59 GMT

Honestly, it's impossible to work in these conditions. I'm writing this from the TechCrunch Real-Time CrunchUp; a one-day event in San Francisco celebrating the joys of the ‘real-time' web. Sounds awesome, right? It is.

I've been on stage, heckling participants on the marketing panel, I've been Tweeting from the audience, I've been following the live-blogging of the panels. Generally I've been living the real time dream – which probably explains why I haven't done any actual work all day. And now I'm twenty minutes away from my deadline, and I still have to read a week of TechCrunch and figure out everything that's happened this week.

Oh, and to make matters worse, Arrington has filled my work room with dogs.

Welcome, then, to a completely – and appropriately – real-time edition of This Week On TechCrunch.

From first glance, it seems that the entire site has been outsourced to India, with both Lacy and Vivek reporting from the ground. And at one point on top of a camel. On Friday evening Sarah kicked things off with a useful primer on why ecommerce has been slow to take off in the country, and how travel sites like MakeMyTrip.com are acting as a gateway drug to get Indians shopping online, starting with ex-pats.

Vivek went one stage bigger, asking whether India has the potential to ‘take on' Silicon Valley. His conclusion: yes. He's wrong of course, but it's an fascinating discussion. As Vivek headed back to the US, Sarah headed to Delhi, and the slums made famous by Slumdog Millionaire. But what she discovered couldn't be more different from what we saw on the big screen: surrounded by grinning children, she met NIIT, a for-profit company that's introducing the poorest children to computers by, well, leaving kiosks lying around and letting human curiosity take its course.

Meanwhile, back in the Valley, Arrington was starting his working week with rumours that MySpace was on the verge of buying iMeem; a rumour that he gleefully confirmed two days later. A million dollars in cash, with half of iMeem's 55 employees (27.5 people) moving to MySpace – and the others looking for new jobs.

Speaking of people looking for new jobs, Robin reported on AOL's appeal for 2,500 employees to voluntarily hand in their notice as the company heads for IPO. The alternative, according to CEO Tim Armstrong? They'll just be fired. This just a week after the company announced 1000 involuntary layoffs. Cast aside like so many unwanted sign-up discs.

Hey, but at least Don Dodge got a new job.

What else?

In real-real time presidential news, Obama admitted that he has never used Twitter, but – as MG puts it – he's adamant that people in China should have the right to.

In real-time celebrity news, Shakira used UStream to stream her new album to 95,000 live viewers and a further 400,000+ watching the reruns over the next 24 hours. (Incidentally this story saw Jason narrowly missing out on the Headline Of The Week award for: “Shakira’s Stats Don’t Lie“. I mean, seriously Jason? “Stats?”. The correct title of course is “Shakira's Hits Don't Lie”. Better luck next time.

In real-time things that I'm already bored of even though they're not launching until at least next year news: Google previewed their new Chrome OS and rumour has it they're on the verge of launching a new Google phone. It's ‘very real‘ says Mike. And it may even be VoIP-only. Splendid.

Which brings us nearly to the real-time event. It's still going on right now, so it's too early to say what the highlights are – tune in next week, etc – but newsworthy segments include the creator of GMail admitting that he hasn't used Wave, an interesting discussion on how to monetize ‘real-time' and, of course, MG's Headline of the Week: Google And The Amazing Technicolor Search Options.

And that's just about it. The after-party is calling, and I'm eager to talk to Scoble more about his ‘Super Tweet‘ idea. I have no idea what it is, but it sounds like the future.

Have a great week!

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

Gmail Creator Thinks Email Will Last Forever. And Hasn’t Tried Google Wave.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:30 GMT

“Email is not going to disappear. Possibly ever. Until the robots kill us all.” – Paul Buchheit, creator of Gmail, co-founder of FriendFeed, currently doing vague infrastructure things at Facebook.

Today, at our RealTime CrunchUp event in San Francisco, Buchheit and Threadsy founder Rob Goldman sat down for a chat with our own Steve Gillmor and Erick Schonfeld. The topic was: Can We Kill Email Already? All Aboard The Micro-Message Bus.

So can we kill email?

Well if Buchheit's quote didn't tip you off, the consensus was “no.” Though there are some interesting things coming out that are helping to expand our communication, we're just not at the point now where we can live without email. And in fact, for many of these services like Twitter and Facebook, you still need email to be notified about new followers or new messages.

Threadsy (which launched at TechCrunch50 this year) is trying to help the transition away from email by integrating it with other services like Twitter, but even Goldman acknowledges that the email notification problem remains an issue because people keep relying on it. At one point, a question from the audience asked about Google Wave, another would be “email-killer,” and Schonfeld noted that he was having a hard time getting into it because he wasn't getting notified via email when there is a new Wave message. So you can see the problem.

Speaking of Wave, when asked about his thoughts on it, Buchheit noted that he hadn't actually tried it yet, while laughing. “The invite is sitting in my inbox.” This is significant because Buchheit was instrumental in creating Gmail for Google. But Buchheit doesn't consider Google Wave as a replacement of email or even Twitter or Facebook. Both him and Goldman agreed that it seemed more of a collaboration tool. And both felt that despite some great technology it was still a few years away from having a polished experience.

When asked if there would be a mashup of social and private streams, such as email and Facebook with Twitter, Buchheit said that he felt rather than one thing killing off another that we would just keep layering on new things. Goldman noted that the next step for Threadsy is to provide better context about the messages you're getting and who you are talking to. He also noted that being able to search across all your messages is key.

So, no. Email isn't dead yet, but it may be changing.

[photo: (cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com]

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

RealTime CrunchUp: Where’s The Money In RealTime?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:15 GMT

For our last discussion at the RealTime CrunchUp, we've got a panel on actually generating revenue from these services. Participating in the discussion are some of the Valley's top VCs and veterans of the space.
Brian Singerman — Founders Fund
Ron Conway — Angel Investor
Dan'l Lewin — Corporate VP for Strategic and Emerging Business Development at Microsoft
George Zachary — Charles River Ventures
Paul Buchheit — Facebook/FriendFeed
Andrew Braccia — Accel Partners
Michael Arrington — Editor and Founder, TechCrunch
Moderated by Steve Gillmor and Erick Schonfeld

Video by Ustream

width="480" height="386" id="utv38007" name="utv_n_390889"> value="always" /> height="386" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" id="utv38007"
name="utv_n_390889" src="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/2604141"
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ES: We talk a lot about the overflow of information. Lots of interest in geo-stream. Where do the money making opportunities lie here? We have lots of consumer use cases.
GZ: That's a broad question. We're investors in three companies now starting to accrue rev. in this space: Twitter, Yammer, and SMSGupshup (Twitter of India). Regarding Yammer: In 0 for marketing, over 10% conversation of the install base for Yammer. The company has around 550k installed enterprise seats in 14 months.
MA: It's this insidious product where it's very sticky and you hae to start paying. It's a good thing.
GZ: It's a good thing for the company, and investor..
DL: Good for customer too. Company stays around.
GZ: In response to Marc Benioff copying Yammer, we got lots of calls saying Chatter copied Yammer.
MA: There's 550k installed enterprise seats, over 10% of new seats convert. There's below 100k paid seats. Near 100k paying users.

GZ: Marc Benioff setting price at 50 per user gives us some room…
ES: What's yammer's strategy to ingest other enterprise data systems.
GZ: I think yammer is going to be the future of enterprise messaging. There's going to be serious competition and we know that.

ES: FriendFeed was the first sig. acqusition in this space. Wasn't the size of what people were talking about with Twitter, but it's a milestone. From a founder perspective you were building this system, can you tell us about, what you thought was obviously the future.
PB: Facebook kept talking to us, they were very persistent. We were never looking to sell, even when we did. What happened is we started talking to them more, learning where they're going. As we put more thought into the future of Facebook it started seeming like an intriguing possibility. The opportunity at Facebook is very substantial. Nobody has ever announced the deal. The biggest component is what is the value is Facebook. I think the value of Facebook is going to be huge. It is going to get more successful.

ES: Brian can you talk about what you guys are interested in?
BS: We're also in Yammer. We're also interested in where real time can go in non consumer/enterprise. There's lots of room in devices, biotech. Lots of cool companies being able to figure out on the fly if there is E Coli in a substance. You can leverage tech to do lots of stuff that used to take a long time.
…
AB: We're taking a wide approach.

MA: Kimball Musk this morning said there are gobs of money in search. When Twitter bought Summize, I think they gave them like 8% of the company, not sure if that's been reported, it was a huge part of the company. I think they realized it was still very hard and passed it to Bing/Google. The places where the money is with Yammer, which touches on things like Echange. And search. But where else are people making money. Where are startups making money if not one of those two buckets?

RC: Those are good buckets. I agree, what you're seeing with the programmable web. Some business is going to take off, we're seeing things that haven't been created yet that are going to see a huge amount of value in things being created.

RC: Coupons alone to inventivize users to go to a nearby place, revenues from that alone could be massive. This is going to happen in 2010.

BS: We've seen a huge amont of traffic on real-time coupons/offerings.

ES: How does microsoft look at this.
DL: he first thing for us is to build the infrastructure out, and look at the big information flows, like we did for the Twitter relationship. Some of these things will be things we'll be interested in. We have been and will continue to be inquisitive. It's been around 20 companies a year on avg. about 10 of those are bubble up like this and become important parts of a broader strategy. RealTime goes way back to the very beginning of data exchange. Who carries the flow, where is the value at what moment in time of the flow of information. These are all indications of inevitability of realtime. What we've done with Twitter/Bing those are foundations for much bigger connections. There's a little company doing math in the cloud, seven guys optomizing POS information. 5k retail points, 20k units inventory in a warehouse.

SG: What do you know about deal with Twitter.
DL: Which deal?…
MA: What's the other deal?
DL: They did one with us.
SG: Question is licensing of feeds?
DL: Why would I offer details on this.
RC: Yon can tell Dan'l likes this job.
MA: I feel like panelists know the answer to this.

RC: The companies we're investing in today that TC writes about are indiciation of where the market is going. COtweet. Retime search companies. That's going to be a hell of a horse race. I think one of the real time search engines that exists today will win out.

AB: Realtime search is a tough space. I think Google does a pretty good job at information retreival. Facebook has search in a different way (more discovery serendipitious). I look at it, if you go back 4 years ago, most of the companies you would see that were web enabled, you could see the same traffic refeeral chart. 30% google SEO. 40% SEM. the rest direct. Today out of nowhere Facebook/Twitter have become huge reffers.

ES: Paul, you're both a buyer and seller because you're an active angel investor. To what extent do the companies you invest in fall in this theme.
PB: I don't know if I've invested in too many real time. I think real time is valuable because… basically the word relevance. Search is valuable because it's relevant. Realtime enables that across a lot of other domains. If right now I say I am sitting right here and I get a coupon, it works because it's relevant to me. If I got it tomorrow it would no longer be relevant. One of the companies I recently invested in. They do car sales/car business. They look for intention are you looking to buy a car, are you having trouble, that's a good opportunity to contact them.

MA: There's another angle to FB search. Forget where you are, what you've done. I found when I look people I know, search results are really good. Reason is because they are ranked based on people who have mutual friends. Google doesn't address that at all. Applies to more than just people. Who you are is really relevant to almost all searches.
PB: Relevance has multiple dimension. Google got keywords. There is time relevance. All are opportunities.

ES: As we look forward at where all this is going. Seems like there are a lot of different approaches. Is there danger of confusion here. Do I build on top of Twitter/Facebook, quasi open systems Google is pushing.

MA: Stocktwits built on Twitter and now they've moved almost completely off it. Zynga is doing it with Farmville now.
BS: If you need to move off, all startups pivot. They can pivot. But I suggest starting with something, pick best thing for the job, and don't be afraid to pivot.
RC: Start with one with cheapest cost, highest number of users, off you go.
AB: I think good entrepreneurs will find their way. Omar at AdMob.. even before iPhone launched he was focused on that as an opportunity for a business. They'll find their way.

DL: Big question is whether company that rises as a company like Twitter. Or one like Facebook becomes core platform. Pick starting point but it's hard to argue that anyone can anticipiate which one is going to get lift like a Twitter. Why Twitter and not someone else.

ES: George, maybe you can answer that. Twitter, Facebook, Google each platforms taking different approaches.

GZ: The concept of a social network has been around for a long time.The one difference is twitter is unlike geocities etc. Twitter is an example of a horizontal network. They own namespace, let third parties build it out.

ES: FriendFeed was ultimate twitter client. Paul, you built it partially on back of Twitter. But then when you sold to FB you bet on FB model.
PB: I think both companies have promising future. I don't see it as once vs other. I don't know how the future will play out. They're both incredibly well positioned. I'd love to own either (or both). FB had all these features, for API had to allow access to each, more complex. Twitter only had a few features so it was very easy to build a Twitter client. Set up this whole ecosystem of twitter apps. Everyone filled in the little pieces by themselves. I'm curious if anyone else can do this. They've managed to outsource this.

SG: Does anyone have an opinion if lists, RT, etc are going to be plus or minus.
RC: Huge plus. People have been screaming for ecosystem for lists for a year. Whole ecosystem of companies built off lists themselves. Twitter is building a platform. in the next year there will be 100 apps built off twitter lists.

DL: I think most of the money will be made in enterprise communications.

ES: What will be the biggest real time exit next year?
DL: I think a number of things sub 100, 50. One thing that will be a billion dollar thing. Not even sure there will be exists. It think opportunities for big things will be able to stand alone.
GZ: I can't even predict what's going to happen next year. I think most of the companies in this space in terms of revenue are fairly immature with the exception of FB. I think more likely for big exists in 2010/2011.
RC: This market is in its infancy. I think a couple max in 50-100. Acquisitions in 2010 will be for IP and great teams.
MA: Do you think Zynga is doing more monthly rev than Facebook?
RC: Interesting question.
PB: I've heard rumors of Zynga IPO.
AB: I agree with the panel.

Q: Who is Twitter disrupting?
RC: Dick Costolo had some fascinating adjectives. “non tradional” “unique” “organic” “people will love it”. That's a pretty interesting drum roll.
The next wave of disruption in technology will come and disrupt the big ones.

DL: I think Michael has a POV of our position on the web. Not sure if anyone paid attention to what we announced at our dev conf.

————

Full transcript:

>> So this is the last session that we're about to start.

And let's stay here and we can get this one wrapped up on time.

>> So if everyone on the final panel, if they're not behind there, are they all back there?

Should we give away the

okay.

So at the end of this panel, we're going to give away the sailing trip again.

So I'm not going to do it now because everyone left.

If everybody who is on this panel can come up.

Brian Singerman, Ron Conway, Dan'l Lewin, Paul Buchheit and Andrew Braccia.

If you're back stage, come on up here.

>> All right.

We're going to get started.

Can you find the other panelists.

We'll have drinks afterwards.

So we'll get started.

Okay.

Yeah, George, are you giving a demo?

>> He's around.

>> George Zachary.

You want to come up on stage, guys.

All right.

Ron Conway.

All right.

Someone find Ron Conway.

He'll show up.

Okay.

>> Let's have everybody introduce themselves and say a little bit about why they think that

They have an opinion about real time or not.

Let's start on this end.

>> Andrew Braccia, Accel Partners, have no opinion.

>> Paul Buchheit, Facebook at the moment, I guess, previously Friendfeed, and

>> Facebook, I guess, at the moment?

[LAUGHTER]

>> That came out wrong.

[LAUGHTER]

I was trying to decide whether Friendfeed or Facebook part was more relevant.

They're both very relevant since obviously I think realize is a big time where we're headed

In the future.

And in particular not just the technical aspect but the human aspect of how we relate to each

Other.

>> George.

>> George Zachary, Charles River.

I'm known to have opinions.

I missed the question.

I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention.

>> As it goes, who are you.

>> I'm Dan'l Lewin, I'm with Microsoft.

I'm here in Silicon Valley, and oversee our outreach to the start-up community in general.

>> Great.

Brian Singerman, I'm at Founders Fund.

>> Okay.

So we kind of want to use this panel to, A, wrap up some of the themes that we've been seeing

Today.

And really kind of focus on what both the business and investment opportunities are in the

Future.

So we've seen talk a lot about sort of filtering this overflow of information that's being

delivered in streams.

If you would like.

You can be Ron Conway.

We've seen that there's a lot of interest in geo stream information, lots of start-ups working

On that.

>> By the way, the doors were locked and there are a bunch of people trying to get in, they

Couldn't get in because the doors are locked.

>> Could somebody open the door.

>> In real time, please.

>> All right.

And we're seeing these streams becoming sort of new distribution mechanisms for both private

And public communications, media content, etc..

So where do the money-making opportunities lie here?

We've got a lot of consumer use cases.

Where is the money?

George.

>> That's a pretty broad question.

Well, we're investors in three companies that are now starting to accrue revenues in the space.

One is Twitter.

The second one is Yammer a third in India SMS group shot, people in India call the at which

Twitter of India, which is kind of a Twitter and e-groups blend.

>> Can you talk about how well Yammerer is monetizing, it's unclear.

It would be good to understand.

What percent of customers turn into upgrade into a paid account and what are they paying on

Average?

What's total revenue?

>> I won't tell you that level of detail.

But I will tell you

>> Their advantage is being a private company.

>> I will tell you that with a salesperson who is promoted from customer support, no other

Sales infrastructure, in zero four marketing we have over10 percent conversion of the install

Base.

>> They're paying it

is it $12 a month per user?

I forgot what is it they charge?

>> I can't remember right now.

>> George

$1 per use per month.

>> You told me in the hall once salesforce announced chatter you started getting a lot of

Calls.

>> Just to partially answer your question without getting a raft of crap from the company.

The company has about 550,000 installed seats up from zero in 14 months.

[APPLAUSE]

So I think

>> Was that David Sacks.

>> Has anyone

who here has used Yammer and uses it

more than what I thought.

>> We started using it after TechCrunch after they won the event.

At some point we moved the paid.

We have to move to paid.

Cleared out old accounts and got control of it.

It's an insidious product where you get very sticky.

You're like we have to start paying.

And so it's a good thing.

>> It's a good thing.

It's a good thing for the company and me as an investor.

So to answer your question

>> It's good for the customer because you'll be around for a while, then.

>> That's correct.

To answer your question, you know, post Marc Benioff getting up saying we've blatantly copied

Yammer but I'm not going to tell you because we claim everything.

We started getting calls from investment bankers saying since salesforce has chatter I bet

All these other companies are going to want Yammer.

But we haven't responded to the calls.

>> There's an interesting thing we've noticed at least I've noticed in terms of Yammer, as

They keep broadening their platform across different devices, like, for example, when the iPhone

3.0 software came out it supports push notification.

And all of a sudden if you send an at Steve or at Mike or editor, it shows up, if you have

An iPhone still, which Mike doesn't, it shows up on the, it alerts you.

Literally it pushes to the top of the stack.

>> It synchs across devices which Twitter hasn't come close to doing.

>> You said there's 550,000 seats.

$1 a month.

>> 550,000 installed enterprise seats over 10 percent of new seats convert every month.

>> So it's like 20, 30, 40,000 paid seats.

>> No, it's below 100,000.

>> And that's

below $100,000 in revenue per month.

>> Near 100,000 paying users.

>> It's $1 per month per user.

>> Actually, it's three to five.

>> Okay.

So it's actual revenue.

It's not huge yet but it's proving it's a business model.

>> Marc Benioff is setting the price, his price at 50 bucks per user gives us some you mean

Umbrella for

>> But he ties into all this other CRM data, right?

So are you saying that you're going to

what's Yammer strategy to kind of ingest other, you

Know, enterprise data systems and make those, you know, alerts within Yammer?

>> That's correct.

That's correct.

And just to pick on Marc a little bit, salesforce is a company with more P than E in their

P to E and existing off of CRM is not a good way to maintain the company.

So he has to spread into the space.

And my belief is that the core of all enterprise IT is going to be messaging.

I mean, huge franchises have been built off of messaging, specifically e-mail and Dan'l you

Would know this well, and I believe that Yammer is going to be the future of enterprise messaging.

So I'm very excited about it.

There's going to be serious competition, we know that.

>> So, Paul, Friendfeed was the first really kind of significant acquisition in the space.

You know, definitely wasn't in terms of size of what people were talking about Twitter, but

Twitter never sold.

But in terms of the impact you guys are having, within Facebook, I think that it's a milestone.

And $50 million is nothing to sneeze at.

So to what extent, from a founder perspective, right, you're building the system, can you tell

Us a little bit about what extent were you sort of off in the woods doing what you thought

Was obviously the future, and at what point did sort of the bigger companies, the acquirers

Start sniffing around?

>> You know, Facebook kept talking to us.

Like from the very beginning.

They're very persistent.

And so pretty much always there were people looking.

But we were never looking to sell.

Even when we did sell.

It was a surprise even to us.

So but really what happened was that we did start talking to them more closely and got to meet

More of the team and learn more about where they saw things going.

And you know as we started putting more thought into essentially the future of Facebook, it

Started to seem like a very intriguing possibility.

And ultimately that was obviously what we did.

>> So your motivation for selling was primarily what?

>> The opportunity at Facebook is very substantial.

You quoted a number which we've never

no one has ever announced the deal, but obviously

The biggest component is the question of what is the value of Facebook.

And I think that the value of Facebook is going to be huge.

It's a very successful company.

It's going to get more so I think in the future.

There's really a lot of opportunity in the whole area of all the social and the real time and

Everything.

And they're in a somewhat unique position which I think will prove rather lucrative.

>> Brian, can you tell us a little bit about your involvement in real time, what kind of real

Time companies have you invested in?

>> Yes, we're also in Yammer along with George.

And supporting David for a while.

But I actually think.

>> What kind of revenues is Yammer doing.

>> Last time I saw Mike he asked me exactly what the Facebook revenues were.

I gladly volunteered that information as well.

No.

We're interested in that kind of stuff.

But we're also interested in where real time can go from nonconsumer or enterprise apps.

We think there's a lot of room for real time in devices, and there's lots of room for real

Time in biotech applications, and everything else.

>> Biotech, like what?

>> Like for instance there's lots of cool companies doing things like being able to figure

Out on the fly if there's E. Coli in a given substance.

And stuff like that.

So I know it's not the exact same type of real time that we're talking about, but technology

Is able to

you can leverage technology to do lots of cool stuff that used to take a long

Time.

Like how news before

>> It's real time in the sense that if you find out before you eat the hamburger, that's good.

>> That's right.

It's a lot better to find out beforehand.

>> But there's an application in India right now, there are huge issues on global health where

People take medicines, drugs, which are purported to be clean and prescribed, but they're actually

Counterfeit.

And a third of the time you have a chance of dying from taking the drug.

Because it's not real and it's not clean.

So there's a public/private key.

Real time example of you scrape off a little piece of hidden thing like you do on the prize,

And you SMS the code and you get a real time check, is this a real drug or not.

And then you choose to take it and live.

So there's a ton of examples outside of many noisy things that are real world applications.

in healthcare bio, life sciences, simple things like that.

Lots of opportunity.

>> I agree.

Absolutely.

>> That's one of those things, it's one of those areas that's really exciting to us right

Now.

Just basically taking stuff that used to take a long time and require a lot of capital, making

It not require a lot of capital, and having instant gratification.

Like in general that's the theme of real time, and we're huge fans of that.

>> Andrew, can you talk a little bit about in terms of what percentage of pitches that you're

Seeing now either they use this term or that you

I mean, is this becoming the new Web two

2.0.

Are people using it as a branding mechanism?

Is there somethi

RealTime CrunchUp: The Rise Of Geo Streams

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:36 GMT

Today at the RealTime CrunchUp, representatives from some of the top companies involved in location based services came together to talk about the current state and future of geo-based services.

Participating in the panel were:
Matt Galligan, co-Founder of SimpleGeo
Ryan Sarver, Director of Platform at Twitter
Tristan Walker, VP of Business Development at Foursquare
Steve Lee, Group Product Manager Google Maps for Mobile and Google Latitude
Justin Shaffer, Founder of Hot Potato
Elad Gil, CEO of Mixer Labs
Moderators were our own Erick Schonfeld and MG Siegler.

Video by Ustream

Early in the panel, the conversation turned to SimpleGeo, the new infrastructure for location that was revealed earlier this week. Shaffer spoke about how excited he was about the new service. When asked if anyone could copy what Foursquare was doing, Walker talked about Foursquare's efforts to filter content (which is harder to reproduce).

MG then steered the conversation toward bridging the gap between social networks and the real world, noting that mobile devices are paving the way for this change. But he wondered how services other than Foursquare (which has a game mechanic) would entice users to share their location on a regular basis.

Lee addressed concerns over Latitude's continuous location sharing, explaining that you can share your location with certain people who you specify, but that Latitude's approach to constant tracking leads to the ability to offer interesting services. He says that without continuous sharing nearby alerts wouldn't be possible (or at least as effective). He says that the check-in model and the continuous model will likely coexist (and that check-in can even help give more context about where you are) but that there's things you can't do without continuous tracking. Regarding Checking in verus continuous mapping, Elad Gil says he's seeing about a “nine to ten” relationship between them.

Galligan chimed in by saying that there will be a point when we know where everyone is, but that the context won't necessarily be known. Galligan then revealed a new technology they are working on involving four dimensions of geolocation that SimpleGeo has created, which allows them to compress location and time stamps into a datapoint, allowing apps to look into the past for the same location.

Sarver talked about why Twitter was interested in location, describing how it would help filter through the noise. He mentioned TrendsMap.com as a great way to visualize geotagged tweets.

Shaffer said that HotPotato is looking to integrate location into their service, but that another key element is what brings conversation together. He says that just location data isn't necessarily enough (he points out that people watching a baseball game may actually be at the game, or watching on TV.)

In terms of advertising, there seemed to be a broad consensus that geo-based advertising had the potential to be extremley successful. Galligan brought up the potential of special ads and deals, pointing to Yowza as a great example. Saffer later commented that there's a fine line that these services have to work with — it would be a negative for ads to actually feel like ads (instead it would be better for them to feel like deals).

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

Droid Does: A Price Drop

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:04 GMT

When it was released earlier this month, the retail price for the Motorola Droid was $200 for new activations on Verizon. Although Verizon is staying firm with that price point for now, it appears that some of its retailers are not.

Specifically, Amazon and Dell have both cut prices on the smartphone to $150 and $120, respectively. The news comes just one day after news broke of price cuts by online retailers on other devices not named iPhone: the Palm Pre and Pixi.

Of course, the device cost shouldn’t really play a huge role in consumer’s decision given the total costs of ownership for all of them are well into the thousands of dollars over the life of the wireless contract. Nonetheless, if retailers are slashing prices, meaning they’re making less on each sale, it could be a sign that these iPhone alternatives aren’t selling as well as anticipated.

So far, it’s been estimated that the Droid sold about 100,000 handsets in its first weekend and 250,000 in its first week on the market.

[Disclosure: Motorola is a sponsor of Mashable's Open Web Awards.]

Tags: droid, Mobile 2.0, Motorola, smartphones, verizon

Seize Seesmic Twitter app on BlackBerry, Android

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:02 GMT

Twitter service Seesmic expands from the desktop with two new apps for Google Android and BlackBerry phones.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

RealTime CrunchUp: Media Streams As The Ultimate Marketing Vehicle

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:13 GMT

At our Real-Time CrunchUp today in San Francisco, we are hosting a panel titles “Media Streams: Are These The Utlimate Marketing Vehicle?”

Panelists include Sean Rad, CEO of Ad.ly; Ryan Amos, co-founder of DailyBooth; Jesse Engle, CEO of CoTweet; Robin Bechtel, a celebrity agent and Philip Nelson, SVP of strategic development for NewTek.

Below find my live notes (paraphrased):

ES: What are celebrities doing to leverage the social streams?

RB: I oversee Britney Spears' digital properties and we are using Twitter to build up buzz around her concerts. Using Twitter, we were able to get 8,000 people to Times Square all by herself.

PN: Fans can feel like they are an intimate part of your lives. For example, Heidi and Spencer did a live webcast, that we did, from the Bahamas from their hotel room. They had over 50,000 people watching that.

ES: To what extent is Twitter a Marketing vehicle and to what extent is it an entertainment and marketing vehicle itself?

RB: One thing that's interesting is that we work with Facebook to sell virtual charms for Britney. We just Twittered that we were doing and it was in the press within a matter of hours.

JE: Twitter is the focal point where a lot of elements come together. Twitter is a focal point to stay connected to the public.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

VideoLobby Wants To Help You Create Your Own Custom-Branded Live Webcasts

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:03 GMT

Today at the RealTime CrunchUp we saw the launch of VideoLobby, a new service founded by Peter Urban that's looking to make it easier to create professional-looking webcasts, complete with custom branding. The service is an extension of Urban's “sales software for real people” service Smibs.

Urban says that while some other services offer embeds, you're generally responsible for building your own branded site to insert those in. That's where VideoLobby comes in: the site helps you build your own custom video portal, and then allows you to include streams from services like Qik, Ustream and Justin.tv. The company calls itself the “Blogger for real-time video”.

The service doesn't just make your page look nicer, though — it can automatically pull in comments from Twitter and Facebook, and also allows users to submit questions directly from the show's page. Stream administrators can use a management system to heck off their questions as they answer them. And the service is completely free.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

FlixUp Is Rotten Tomatoes For Twitter Movie Talk

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:56 GMT

Rotten Tomatoes is a great site because it takes all the movie reviews from around the web and condenses them into an easy-to-understand aggregate score. But let's be honest: Most movie reviewers suck. Why not instead rely on people in your social circle to recommend movies to you? That's the idea behind FlixUp.

This new iPhone app unveiled at our Realtime CrunchUp event in San Francisco today essentially scans Twitter for what people are saying about a movie and shows you a rating based on that. It can return a general score from across Twitter, or the tweets about the movie from people you follow on Twitter.

But the key is the filtration. Plenty of people say things about movies on Twitter that are worthless, but FlixUp has what it believes to be the perfect algorithm to sort out the useful movie tweets from the not useful ones. They call it the “Twitter Noise Assassin.” And the results seem solid for how the collective views the film.

It's been said that early buzz on services like Twitter can now make or break a movie, so a service like Flixup is the next logical step. They not only show if people are liking it or not liking it, but you can see how much people are talking about it.

The company behind FlixUp, Bazaarlabs, also has plans to extend this idea to other entertainment categories beyond movies. And eventually they plan to use more than Twitter as their data source, such as Facebook.

The app should be out in a couple of weeks.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

Retweets Are Hot. Will Retweeting Ads Be? TweetMeme Thinks So.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:35 GMT

You know the retweet button you see on content spread throughout the web? You can thank TweetMeme for that. Long before Twitter's new Retweet functionality existed, this button was the way to share on Twitter. And it still is for content not on twitter.com. But now it's time for TweetMeme to think about making money. And they've come up with a way that people are either going to love or hate.

At our Realtime CrunchUp in San Francisco today, TweetMeme founder Nick Halstead has unveiled AdTweets. As you might expect, this involves ads that appear on your site — but with the addition of a retweet button. Yes, you can also retweet these ads just as you would any piece of content.

The idea seems like an obvious one for the company. It's similar to what Digg is doing with its Digg ads, where users can vote on advertisements just as they would with regular content. The difference here is that you would be sending an ad to your contacts on Twitter. Is anyone really going to want to do that? And if they do, will their contacts start unfollowing them?

But the idea here is clearly not to share just any ad, but rather ads that have the potential to go viral — particularly video ads. And TweetMeme already has a big partner on board. They've just announced that they cut a deal with Federated Media in two weeks time. With this partnership, their button can be added into any standard advertisement that FM allows.

The tweeting out of ads or sponsored links has long been a controversial thing. Some are convinced this is a great way to make money, while others consider this absolutely pure spam. It's an interesting play, to say the least. If TweetMeme is able to spread this idea the way they've spread their button, they're going to make a ton of money.

AdTweets will launch in 2 weeks.

CrunchBase Information

TweetMeme

Information provided by CrunchBase

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

SuperFeedr Wants To Speed Your Feeds

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:29 GMT

The first randomly selected audience winner today at the RealTime CrunchUp is SuperFeedr. They are an API service that works with both XMPP and PubSubHubbub (which launched at the frist CrunchUp) to create realtime content feeds.

As they noted on stage, it's hard to demo something that is API only, but one implementation that we've written about before is Excla.im, which we wrote about recently. This allows for the realtime tracking of keywords on Twitter via IM. But this idea works for all content.

And one of the most interesting thing about SuperFeedr is their promises. One is that if you don't get your content served in less than 15 minutes, it's free. Another promise is that they will meet or beat the cost of your existing system for monitoring feeds.

If you monitor less than 1,000 feeds, SuperFeedr is free. If you go over that, you must buy credits (but it's pretty cheap).

Coincidentally, SuperFeedr just 3 days ago raised a seed round of funding from Betaworks and Mark Cuban.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

PlyMedia: Transcribing And Captioning Videos In Real Time

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:29 GMT

With services like Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Kyte, and Qik bringing live video streaming to the masses, the web is turning into a viable competitor to television for real-time content. But while all of these services are great for bloggers remotely broadcasting footage,or streaming live events, but they come with a few problems: video content isn't optimized for search engines, and unlike TV, there's no closed captioning. PlyMedia is looking to change that.

The company is launching a service that will offer real-time captions and super-fast transcriptions to suit the needs of live streamers. Transcriptions are performed by a human (capable of typing quite quickly, naturally) who listens in to the feed and transcribes in real time, anywhere in the world. To help achieve a true real-time experience, PlyMedia is actually teaming with some live streamers to integrate a slight delay (say, two or three seconds) to give the transcriptionist enough lead time to generate captions in time with the video. Those transcriptions can then be sent to the site hosting the video, where they can be posted to help with SEO (and to give readers a chance to skim through the content to decide if they want to watch the movie).

PlyMedia transcribing the Realtime CrunchUp in realtime in our Ustream video. The realtime transcription service will be used by UStream, Livestream, and the Wall Street Journal.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Mozzler’s Real-Time Search Engine Scours Twitter For The Most Retweeted News

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:10 GMT

At today's Real-Time CrunchUp, Mozzler launched its real-time search engine based on Twitter. Mozzler, which has real-time functionality, searches Twitter for the most popular content in the last six hours based on retweets.

You can search Mozzler by keyword, similar to searches you can do on OneRiot and other search engines that include Twitter results. Results can include videos and images as well. Mozzler has also created numerous categories of searches under technology, entertainment, sports, business and more.

What differentiates Mozzler is the ability filter the stream. You'll be able to create customized streams by keyword, which are updated in real-time. You can share links to streams on social networks and users can also subscribe to streams.

And one particularly compelling feature is Track (which should be sure to make TechCrunchIT editor Steve Gillmor happy), which is like Google Alerts for Twitter. Twitter has yet to implement Track yet, but it's a very desirable feature to help filter and “keep track” of the stream.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

HOW TO: Use Social Media to Find Black Friday Deals

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:33 GMT

Susan Payton is the Managing Partner of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an internet marketing firm. She blogs at The Marketing Eggspert Blog, and teaches marketing courses at Marketing EggSchool. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.

We're a week away from Black Friday and just a few years ago, if you wanted to find the best deals, you had to wait for the sales flyers to hit your newspaper or mailbox. You'd make a list of what you wanted and get your game plan together. But that's all changed because of social media. Tools like iPhone apps, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook will be key in helping competitive shoppers get a leg up against the thousands of shoppers vying for the deals of the century this season. And with holiday spending projected to be down 3% from last year's low numbers, stores are doing whatever they can to make it easier for shoppers to spend their money with them.

Blogs and Websites

Weeks before Black Friday, blogs and websites like Black Friday 2009 and BlackFriday.info have been uploading sales flyers from every store imaginable to help shoppers plan out their attack on the biggest shopping day of the year. For gadget-lovers, Gizmodo's #blackfriday feed has the latest posts about the best electronic deals to be had.

Mom-related blogs and forums, such as MomsLikeMe, a geography based networking site, or Triangle Mom2Mom, focus on the strategies for what to do with the kids when shopping on Black Friday, local sales and events, and advice on how to stretch that dollar even farther.

The benefit to blogs is that they are updated constantly, with deals being posted every day. Find one or two you like and subscribe to their RSS feeds to stay abreast of the latest Black Friday news and offers.

My Black Friday Deals takes a sprinkling of social media and mixes it together with a dash of blogging to create a place for shoppers to interact. The site uses the mobile photo slide show app Whrrl to allow bloggers to take pictures of the best deals they can find in stores and upload them to the site to be voted on by deal seekers. The best deals will then be shared on Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook.

Full disclosure: Susan works with Collective Bias, which runs My Black Friday Deals.

Social Media

Bloggers, consumers, and brands alike are all using Twitter and Facebook this year for Black Friday. Staples has been “leaking” its own Black Friday deals on its Twitter and Facebook accounts for days, and a search for the term #blackfriday on Twitter nets an endless stream of deals, tips, and links that will help shoppers save on Friday. You can also check out the @blackfriday account, which tweets Black Friday news from across the web.

Macy's too has been priming its followers on Twitter for its Black Friday sales, as well as its annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. Wal-Mart, which has claimed it won't be beat on price on Black Friday or after, is tweeting its deals already in place, and will likely do so through Black Friday.

The dedicated Black Friday blogs and web sites (such as the ones mentioned above) are also getting a piece of the social media pie by creating Fan Pages on Facebook, like the one for Black-Friday.net. Pages like this really put the power in the hands of the people, who can share deals as they find them.

YouTube is chock full of videos about Black Friday, as well. The site has a large library of clips from both consumers and major news networks, with advice on handling the crowds on Black Friday, what to expect at the stores, and tips on which stores have the best deals.

There's an App for That

Now that I have an iPhone, I get excited about functional, useful applications like the Black Friday apps that have come out this year. DealNews has a free Black Friday app that lets you sort deals by “Early Bird,” “In Store Only,” and “Limited Availability,” as well as see photos of the sale items.

The Toys R Us Big Book Favorites app lets users make wish lists, find deals, and share deals (it's free, too). The $0.99 BF Deals app, meanwhile, lets you see a map of other users at stores so you can find a less crowded one (assuming a lot of the shoppers have the app), and it sends your deals to your Twitter account. There are others (do a search in the iTunes store for “Black Friday”), and stores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart may incorporate Black Friday deals into their existing iPhone apps.

Wrapping It Up

If you're planning to brave the crowds on Black Friday, be smart. Get on Twitter, Facebook, or the dozens of Black Friday blogs to find the deals you want. Take your iPhone with you to reduce the number of stores you go to in fruitless search of items that were sold out at 5 AM. And most of all, good luck to you!

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, MarcusPhoto1

Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto

Tags: black friday, deals, List, Lists, shopping

The Serendipity Engine – Web 2 Expo Speech

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:33 GMT

This is my favorite keynote speech yet. It's just 10 minutes long, and I feel pretty good about it. You'll recognize bits of my storytelling from the last several conferences tucked into here in a new way, I hope. Enjoy this video. (Can't see it? Click here)

LUNCHTIME POLL: What’s Your Favorite Video Sharing Service?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:58 GMT

It's Friday, people, which means that not only is it Follow Friday, it's also time for the Lunchtime Poll! Last week we wanted to know about your favorite news reader (or whether you use RSS at all). We'll have the results for you later today, but let's get a head start on the new poll: what's your favorite video sharing service?

We'll start off with some responses from the staff here at Mashable, and let you fine folks have at it in the comments. Be sure to let us know along with your vote why you chose it as your favorite. We'll post the results next week to show the zeitgeist from Mashable readers.

Are you in? Let's roll the question!

What's your favorite video sharing service?

Mashable Faves

Adam Ostrow: YouTube or Ustream. It's all about the content.

Pete Cashmore: YouTube.

Sharon Feder: I'm not a power user, but Vimeo is definitely my favorite.

Ben Parr: Viddler, YouTube, and Ustream, depending on the situation.

Christina Warren: Vimeo, because it has the best quality.

Barb Dybwad: I like Qik for mobile, Flickr for short visually-interesting clips, and YouTube for an endless stream of distractions punctuated by hilarious cats.

Tamar Weinberg: YouTube because it actually can process Kodak Zi6 videos (Flickr and Vimeo cannot), but Vimeo has a really awesome GUI.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ericsphotography

Reviews: Flickr, Mashable, Vimeo, YouTube, iStockphoto, ustream

Tags: flickr, lunchtime poll, qik, ustream, viddler, video, video sharing, youtube

Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:57 GMT

Thanks to this week’s advertisers and partners for enabling us to bring you the latest social media news and resources. Mashable's sponsors are as social media savvy as our readers!

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This week, our valued sponsors are The NY Times Reader 2.0, Leapfish, Web 2.0 Expo New York, nimbb, MOTOBLUR, Conduit, Clickatell, Influxis, EdgeCast, Microsoft BizSpark, MailChimp, Sun Startup Essentials, and Eventbrite.

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Status.Net: The WordPress For Microblogs Gets A Hosted Solution

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:48 GMT

Last year, we saw the launch of identi.ca, the open-sourced alternative to Twitter. At the time, we wrote that the company was never going to rival Twitter. As it turns out, that's not the goal of parent company StatusNet. Instead, the startup is looking to become something akin to a ‘WordPress for microblogs'. That is to say, they make a platform that others can easily download and install to their own servers. And today they're showing off the next major step in their platform: a hosted solution for those who don't want to bother with managing their own install, which will be hosted on status.net.

In effect, Status.Net is to the StatusNet platform as WordPress.com is to WordPress. Status.Net will offer a free package for very basic use, and will then offer a number of premium packages that give access to premium features. We first heard about the upcoming product last month when StatusNet raised $875,000, but until now they haven't introduced the platform to the public.

Status.Net remains in private beta for now, but we'll let you know when it's available to the public. Also worth pointing out is that Status.Net is launching a new real-time search feature powered by Collecta powered by that company's recently-released Site Search platform.

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Google And The Amazing Technicolor Search Options

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:42 GMT

I'm a big fan of keeping things simple, but that doesn't mean things have to be bland. Google search results are pretty bland. Sure, sometimes you get returned things like YouTube thumbnails or pictures, but many results are still just a monotonous stream of blue links. Google tried to break this stream up a bit with its Search Options, an expandable feature, that gives you a left-side toolbar. But even that is just a bland series of links. Google is finally thinking about changing that.

Today, Google has begun testing a new look for Search Options. This offers more visual approach to this sidebar, including colors and graphics (oh my). As you can see in the screenshot, “Everything” (regular Google results), “News,” and “Blogs” are a few of the newly visual tabs. There is also a “More” area that shows other things like “Maps.”

Yes, these look quite a bit more like Yahoo search results.

But the most significant thing about this new look may be that it's showing up as the default view for those seeing this test. Yes, it's no longer as just an expandable option. Could this be the future of Google Search?

[thanks Kevin]

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Knx.To Is Your Social Graph And Address Book Rolled Into One

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:41 GMT

Angstro, a 2008 TechCrunch50 startup, launched with a product that socialized the content on the web by tapping into your social graph. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today the startup is launching Knx.to, a real-time search engine capability and API that looks up most recent social information about any of your friends, from their LinkedIn profile to their Flickr account to their Facebook profile.

In order to understand Knx.to's virtue, it's best to see the technology implemented in an application. Ribbit Mobile, a Google Voice competitor and cloud-based VoIP telephony service, recently launched with the capability of integrating any calls to a contact with your social networks, which was powered by Knx.to.

To enable the application, you sign into your Twitter, Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr accounts via oAuth, Facebook Connect and more. When a friend calls you (or you call a friend), the technology will automatically scan all of your social networks, identify if the contact is a friend, and will pull all the most recent photos, Tweets, status updates, and more into its search pane. The idea is to give a social context to all of your contacts, which is definitely useful information for both professional and personal contacts.

Knx.to's is officially launching its API to allow a variety of applications to tap into this new way for adding additional social information to contacts. It's a innovative idea and something that many applications, whether it be email or VoiP/phone based technologies.

The startup also has a standalone consumer facing search engine that lets users easily tap into the most recent information about a friend or contact from one platform. After logging into your accounts via oAuth, Facebook Connect and more, you simply type in a friend's name and the real-time results of your friends' latest acitivity on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Yahoo Mail will show up. Additional social media sites will be added in the future.

One issues with tapping into social networks for this information is security. But Knx.to's founder, Rohit Khare, says that all of the results and information are stored in your browser, and don't break any social network's terms of agreements. Similar in some ways to email plug-in Xobni, Knx.to adds another layer to your contact list which in the age of social media, is very useful.

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Qwisk Brings Your Social Networks To The Browser

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:35 GMT

Qwisk, which is launching today at the Real-Time CrunchUp, is an innovative new way to add a social twist to your browser. The site, which is a product of Y Combinator-funded company Socialbrowse, connects with you with your friends on Facebook and Twitter in real-time as you browse the web. We have 500 invites exclusively for TechCrunch users. You can redeem these invites simply by clicking here.

It's important to note that Qwisk is a browser extension, not a plug-in to a browser. On the site's page, you sign into your Facebook and Twitter accounts via Facebook Connect and oAuth. Qwisk will then add a sidebar to your browser that will show a feed of Facebook status updates and Tweets. You can also share any link or content to Twitter and Facebook from the sidebar itself.

Qwisk also includes its own built in social network, where you can share content from your browser with your friends via a drag and drop technology. When you drag a site into your friend's profile, Qwisk will automatically send him or her a shortened link to the site, You can then conduct real-time conversations around any content on the web.

The fact that Qwisk is doing this via a standalone application as opposed to a plug-in is impressive. The upside is that it works on all browsers but it's not easy to do. Powered by FriendFeed's Tornado technology, which was just open sourced by Facebook, Qwisk is adding an real-time sharing element to browsing that helps all of us lazy folks who don't want to jump to our Twitter or Facebook client to share a link. It truly does make sharing very simple. Qwisk is similar in theory to Reframe It and Google's Sidewiki, which both add a social element to browsing.

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Seesmic Launches Mobile Apps for Android and BlackBerry

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:28 GMT

Hot on the heels of the launch of the Windows desktop app preview, Seesmic has brought its Twitter client to the mobile arena as well with the launch of clients for the Android and BlackBerry platforms. Both apps are available for free — get the Android version from the Android Market and the BlackBerry version by pointing your BlackBerry to Seesmic.

We had a chance to test out the Android build on the Motorola Droid and came away impressed. The interface is well-designed and easy to use. Read on for our impressions and a demo video below.

Four buttons at the top take you to timeline, replies, direct messages or profile views. Drilling down into an individual tweet allows you to reply, DM reply or retweet using the “original” RT style. Composing a tweet includes the ability to add location information, include a photo or video from your gallery or one on the spot from the camera, and shorten included links using bit.ly, J.mp or Tinyurl (you can make your selection in the Settings along with your choice of photo and video service).

From the profile view of yourself or another Twitter user, you can drill down into their tweets, favorites, followers and who they're following, plus reply, direct message, unfollow or block them. It's a nice level of detail, with one small omission which we'd love to see added at some point — support for Lists. Since Seesmic Desktop and the web version both added support recently, we're sure it won't be long before mobile clients get an update as well.

As compared to the current leader on the Android platform, Twidroid, Seesmic compares quite favorably to the free version. The app display is high-definition (the first high-def Twitter client on the platform, according to Loic Lemur, CEO and founder of Seesmic) which makes it more visually attractive — quite stunning on the Droid screen, for example. It does lack the search capability and trending features on Twidroid, but nevertheless the app is solid and a worthy addition to the Twitter client arsenal on the Android platform.

We'll be testing out the BlackBerry version as well (pictured, below, along with a demo video of both clients), and Loic says sit tight for an iPhone version coming soon. We'd love to hear your impressions on both clients if you have a chance to check them out. Are you a Seesmic user excited about your Twitter client experience coming to the mobile? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Android, Seesmic, Seesmic Desktop, Twidroid, Twitter

Tags: android, blackberry, Mobile 2.0, seesmic, twitter, twitter clients

Seesmic Ventures Into Mobile With Powerful New Apps For Android And BlackBerry

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:27 GMT

Seesmic is having a huge week. The startup that develops Twitter and Facebook clients for the web and desktop just unveiled a native Windows client at Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference earlier this week. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today, Seesmic is launching its first venture into the mobile space with impressive apps for both the Android and BlackBerry, which are now available for download here. This is a pivotal moment for Seesmic because the startup is now conquering all the mediums—web, desktop and mobile. I sat down with Seesmic's co-founder, Loic Le Meur, to test out the apps.

The BlackBerry App

The BlackBerry app, which works with the devices running OS 4.6 or higher, has a extremely sleek nice interface, which is optimized for BlackBerry users with all sorts of efficiencies. You can quickly change from different timelines, easily switching from your inbox, to mentions, to direct messages. Plus, you can monitor various Twitter accounts within one appp. When you send a Tweet, you can shorten a link via Bit.ly, and upload pictures or videos via yFrog. One compelling feature is the ability to email a Tweet to a contact directly from the Tweet.

The app also includes search (Seesmic stores all the info in cache) and will also feature notifications of new Tweets and DMs while you are scrolling through email (a little raccoon will pop up with a number of new Tweets, says Le Meur). And hands down the two best features of the Blackberry app is the ability to see your Twitter lists directly from the app and geolocation, so you'll be able to tweet your location directly from the app. Seesmic just added geolocation, as the API was released yesterday. Facebook integration will be added in the near future.

The Android App

The Android App also features a very sleek design and a user-friendly UI. The most noticeable advantage is how fast the app is. Le Meir says the app is native to the Android and claims its the “Tweetie for the Android.” Via a touch interface, you can easily navigate though threaded timelines, direct messages, different accounts, and @replies. And you can email Tweets as well as easily switch to landscape mode.

When you Tweet you'll see options for Tweeting publicly or via a DM and shorten links through Bitl.ly. You can easily attach a picture or video via yFrog. And here's the kicker-you can also upload videos directly to YouTube via the app. You can also access other users profiles, see his/her Tweets, who he/she is following and then follow the users. In addition you can also block or unfollow a user.

While Twitter rolled out the geolocation API yesterday, Seesmic hasn't integrated its API into the app. But the app still features a geolocation tool that lets you embed your location in a Tweet via the Android's GPS, which will show your location on Google Maps.

The app works with all models of the Android and was optimized for the newly launched Verizon Droid. While the Android app doesn't have list functionality or Facebook integration, Le Meur says these features will be added in the near future.

The iPhone App

A few months ago, Le Meur informed me of Seesmic's iPhone app. But the app is still being tweaked. While we don't know the in-depth details of the iPhone app, we do know that it will have functionality for both Twitter and Facebook status updates.

Seesmic's BlackBerry app will face competition from UberTwitter, OpenBeak (formerly TwitterBerry), Tweetcaster and perhaps even a RIM-developed Twitter client. But Seesmic's app is chock full of nifty features, such as lists and perhaps even Facebook integration in the future. It will certainly be a viable contender in the space. The Android app will face competition from a smaller group of Twitter clients for the Android, which include Twitdroid, Swift, and TwitterRide. But like the BlackBerry app, Seesmic's Android app is fast, sleek, easy to use and will also have Facebook built in soon, making it very attractive.

As I wrote above, Seesmic is now full throttle in developing numerous offerings for the web, mobile and desktop. Le Meur says the Windows clients had 10,000 downloads within 12 hours. I fully expect the the Android and BlackBerry apps to receive the same response. As the startup continues to develop new and innovative products, it is slowly encroaching on rival Tweetdeck's market share and attracting a whole new set of followers as well. But a little friendly competition is never a bad thing between technology companies.

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Status.Net: The WordPress For Microblogs Gets A Hosted Solution

Google And The Amazing Technicolor Search Options

Knx.To Is Your Social Graph And Address Book Rolled Into One

Qwisk Brings Your Social Networks To The Browser

Seesmic Launches Mobile Apps for Android and BlackBerry

Seesmic Ventures Into Mobile With Powerful New Apps For Android And BlackBerry