Open Thread: How Do You Stream Internet Content to Your TV?
One of Apple's announcements yesterday was a completely redesigned Apple TV. It's competing in a crowded and still confusing field of products that stream video from the Internet to your TV. Boxee and Roku are two smaller companies trying to crack it; and Google TV was unveiled in May. The ultimate goal of all of these products is to make Web-to-TV very easy... Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Today, 12:15am
Google Announces Wave In A Box
Google Wave is far from dead, and developers, early adopters and enterprises will be glad to hear it. Today Google announced it will expand on the code it has already open sourced, building Wave into a functional application that will allow users to run wave servers, host their own waves and build bigger and better applications with the real-time collaboration technology. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 11:30pm
Twitter Now Over 145 Million Users, Almost 300,000 Apps
When I read Twitter CEO Evan Williams post tonight about the state of Twitter from a mobile perspective, the first thing that jumped out at me what that Twitter for Android, an app Twitter worked hard on, isn't even in the top 10 most-used apps for the service. But Williams also used the post to whip out some impressive numbers. Chief among them: Twitter now has over 145 million registered users (though presumably less than 150 million, or he would have said that). And there are now nearly 300,000 registered apps in the Twitter ecosystem.
The latter number above is technically the number of registered OAuth apps in the ecosystem (and includes multiple instances of some apps). Twitter... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 10:37pm
Top 10 Twitter Apps: Why Mobile Use Is Rocketing on Twitter
As far as Web services go, Twitter is pretty easy to use. Fill out a brief profile, follow some people and go, right? Well apparently not. Developers at the company have been fretting over the fact that some people still think Twitter is "too hard" to use. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 10:31pm
How to Get a Job at a Startup After College Graduation
College hiring is projected to rebound in time for the Class of 2011 to feel its effects, according to a new survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Employers who took part in NACE's survey say they're anticipating hiring 13.5% more new college grades from the Class of 2011 than they did from the Class of 2010. And in general, just under 48% of those responding said they plan to increase their hiring, while 40% say they expect to maintain the hiring levels. Good news for those stepping into the job market after graduation this spring. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 10:30pm
Um, Where’s Twitter For Android On Twitter’s Top 10 Apps?
This evening Twitter CEO Evan Williams put up an interesting post about Twitter mobile usage. By just about every measurable metric, it seems to be skyrocketing. He also included a graph of the top 10 ways people are now using Twitter. This includes both Twitter's own apps and third-party clients, but notably, Twitter for Android is nowhere to be seen.
I've confirmed with Twitter that this isn't a mistake. It seems that Twitter for Android is in fact not in the top 10 ways people interact with the service. That's incredible considering that Twitter for iPhone is number 4 and Twitter for Blackberry is number 5. Both of those were built by the Twitter team, just as the Android app was. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 10:06pm
Get Pro SEO Insight For Dirt Cheap With the New SEOMoz
SEOMoz, a site we've covered before as a top-notch resource for search engine optimization tips, recently relaunched their site and opened their campaign-based Web app as a public beta. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 10:00pm
Record Numbers Pinging Ping.fm Thanks To Apple’s Ping
An interesting beneficiary of Apple's launch of music-oriented social network Ping—social status updater Ping.fm. According to Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur, Ping.fm saw a record number of accounts created yesterday (Seesmic acquired Ping.fm earlier this year).
Could it be a coincidence? Definitely, not. When you Google "Ping," Ping.fm is the second result under the golf equipment site... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 9:59pm
Reddit Diggs Traffic Surge, Prepares For Expansion
It's all hands on deck at Reddit this week.
In the wake of Digg's bungled redesign, its rival is enjoying a surge in traffic and a jump in ad and subscription sales. Since Monday, the site has been averaging 900,000 uniques per day--- a 50% increase from Reddit's pre-"Digg 4" average, according to senior programmer, Chris Slowe. The six-member team does not openly celebrate the technical woes of its competitor but there is a certain giddiness in the air at Reddit's SF headquarters (a small room, tucked in the corner of Wired's expansive office).
The Conde Nast owned startup is having a moment, and they know it.
On Thursday, we dropped by their offices for a pulse check. While programmer David King's eyes were glued to his monitor--- tweaking a... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 9:41pm
Weekly Case Study: Yes Virginia, You Can Cool Your Datacenter
The Virginia Community College system had a problem. The IT department had run out of ways to cool its data center. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 9:30pm
Ustream Snags Former Palm PR VP Lynn Fox
We hear that former Palm Vice President of Public Relations Lynn Fox has given up on her “Consult Until-I-Find-Another-Job Consulting" plans and landed a permanent gig at video streaming service Ustream. Her formal title will be VP of Corporate Communications and she will be reporting to Ustream CEO John Ham.
Sources say that Fox is the first in a series of new hires at Ustream, hires which should be announced formally in the next couple of weeks. Fox's first day will be Tuesday, Sept. 7 and her primary duties will be leading all things related to PR, Events and Social Media.
It looks like Ustream is taking advantage of its $75m round of funding from Softbank and other investors earlier this year in order to ramp up their recruiting efforts and attract major talent... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 9:27pm
The Node.js now running on webOS – and more Web improvements
By Dion Almaer
webOS 2.0 SDK has just launched, and it has node.js built in (and more). The following is taken from my personal blog
At our last Palm Developer Day, Ben and I discussed future APIs for webOS including “JavaScript services” as a way to write code that runs on the other side of the device [...] Read more...
Ajaxian » Front Page, Yesterday, 9:20pm
Facebook Wants To Be In A Relationship With The Big Boys — They Want To Be Just Friends
Yesterday, Apple launched iTunes Ping, their new music social network. Part of that launch was a very basic implementation of Facebook Connect, simply to hook in and find out which of your Facebook friends were also using Ping. I tried it yesterday and it worked fine. But this morning the option vanished and everyone was left wondering what happened?
Well, it vanished because Facebook started blocking iTunes Ping from accessing their API, we've heard (just as AllThingsD and New York Times have as well). Obviously,... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 9:16pm
Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Location
Facebook's goal for its new Places feature may be even more ambitious than we realized. Facebook wants to be the central platform for location data across all Web services, a company spokesman said today at a New York Times developer conference. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 9:00pm
This Spam Infographic About Spam Infographics Makes My Head Hurt
Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post of Internet memes, today wins the "more meta than thou" award for making "An Infographic Backlash Infographic" inspired by the tragic tale of a guy whose job it was to game Digg back when Digg had enough traffic to make it worth gaming.
Okay Buzzfeed, just because you understand recursion, doesn't mean you have to rub it in our face all the time. Aside from the Greyhat SEO tricks, your anti-infographic infographic and the post that inspired it are actually just describing successful Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 7:53pm
Phases of App Maturity: Roadmapping Your Startup's Mobile Strategy
Back in August, after the release of the company's Android app, I spoke with GetGlue CEO Alex Iskold about how his startup prepared itself for making the move to mobile. The app first launched on the Web, and thus the company's developers were most familiar with languages native to the Web. In order to transition to mobile, Iskold and GetGlue employed the services of Appcelerator's Titanium - a tool that simplifies native mobile app development for developers. Today I had the chance to chat with Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 7:50pm
Facebook Testing Subscriptions to Other People; This Will Change How We Use Facebook
Facebook has confirmed that it is testing a new feature that will allow any user to subscribe to notifications of another user's activities through the same interface that new comments and accepted friend requests appear in now. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 7:09pm
Greenpeace Demands Facebook "Unfriend Dirty Coal" For Its New Oregon Data Center
While Facebook might have won praise from locals with its construction of a data center in Prineville, Oregon, it has sparked the ire of the environmental activists at Greenpeace. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 7:00pm
Mark Zuckerberg Is On iTunes Ping — But Only One Is Real
Perhaps you've heard that Apple and Facebook are having a little bit of an issue at the moment. Despite launching with Facebook Connect integration yesterday, it's now nowhere to be seen on Apple's new music social network, Ping. And that's too bad because even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg signed up to try out Ping yesterday, we hear.
While Facebook Connect will no longer help you find Zuckerberg there, if you do a simple name search, there he is. Well actually, there he is twice. Hmm. Which one to choose? Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 6:50pm
In The Coming HTML5 Browser Wars, The Markup Should Remain The Same
On Monday, Google made a big splash with a customized Arcade Fire video page that showed off all the cool things HTML5 can do, from video, animations and 3D rendering to gorgeous fonts and choreographed windows. It's all cutting edge stuff as far as what is possible with a Web browser goes, but there is one very big problem. It doesn't work so great in all browsers, even browsers that supposedly support HTML5. If you go to the landing page that launches the video in Firefox or even the forthcoming IE9 (which isn't out yet, but is very HTML5-friendly), it detects your browser and suggests you use Chrome... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 6:39pm
Check Out This Awesome RSS Reader for Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7 will be available in time for the Holiday Season, Microsoft says, and today the company unveiled a beautiful new RSS reading app built by an award winning team of Microsoft 2010 interns. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 6:34pm
Done Deal: HP Gets 3PAR For $2.35 Billion In Cash
It's officially over. After Dell pulled out of the running this morning, HP has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire data storage company 3PAR, for $33 per share in cash, or a value of $2.35 billion. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.
This morning, HP upped the ante with an offer worth $33 per share or $2.4 billion. 3PAR accepted HP's bid and Dell withdrew. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 6:00pm
Facebook Testing “Subscribe”, Their Version Of Follow — Well Sort Of, Maybe
I feel like all I've written about the past few weeks is Facebook's need for a new social dynamic. Specifically, I want Facebook to break their social graph into two: those people who you are friends with, and those who you follow -- for sharing purposes. It seems that Facebook may be testing something like that out -- well sort of, maybe.
Facebook appears to be testing out a new feature called "Subscribe." A source who supposedly has it enabled, tells All Facebook that "by subscribing you don’t miss any updates from people you subscribe to.” While on the face of it, this would seem to be a lot like the idea of "follow" it's not clear from that wording if you actually already need to be... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 5:30pm
Egypt's Got Facebook Cops: This Week in Online Tyranny
Egypt has created a special security department to monitor Facebook. Allegedly, the "main task of this group is to monitor Facebook content like groups, pages and chat and to publish reports countering online criticism of current Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak or his son Gamal." But it's extremely unlikely that the secret police powering it will not collect user information, as well as seek out and punish those who use the social network for free speech and political reasons. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 5:30pm
Hot Or Not’s App Answers The Next Question: Close By Or Not?
It was only a matter of time before this app came out. The folks over at Hot or Not have launched a location-based free iPhone app that will show you the hottest ladies and gents that are close to you.
If you aren't familiar with Hot or Not, the site allows you to rate pictures of girls or a guys (depending on your taste) on a scale of 1 to 10. It's a mindless site and game which has managed to gather a fairly massive user base. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 5:20pm
Happy Birthday Chrome, You’re About To Overtake Firefox On TechCrunch
As we pointed out earlier, today is Google Chrome's second birthday. Since it launched in beta on September 2, 2008, it has come a long way (it's already 6 versions deep). Back then, it was Windows-only, with official Mac and Linux support only coming late last year. But now it's on the verge of another milestone: becoming the top browser coming to this site.
I've checked out our logs over the past few years to see how well Chrome has been doing compared to its rival browsers. The numbers are shockingly strong for such a new entry -- particularly in the past year. Obviously, TechCrunch has a tech-centric audience, but I don't think it's off-base to say that you're also a leading audience of early adopters that often point to where the general public will be in the... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 4:45pm
One Week Later, Digg VP Talks v4 Launch, Backlash & Future
The Internet was in flames last week as popular social news curation site Digg.com launched the latest iteration of its platform, unleashing a groundswell of outrage and protest from a majority of the site's loyal users. A week later, Digg has begun to respond to its passionate community, making rapid changes and bug fixes as its exhausted back-end infrastructure struggles to keep up. Today I spoke with Digg's VP of Product Keval Desai about the launch, the company's reaction to the negativity from its community and how it intends to move forward into the future. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 4:17pm
Don't Track Me: Anti-Google Video Plays on Times Square
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 4:12pm
The First Samsung Galaxy Tab Commercial Shows Off Swype, Augmented Reality & Video Calling
Prepare to get hit by a ton of Sammy marketing. The commercial embedded here is likely just the first wave of Samsung's assault on the iPad. And it seems that they're going about it the right way, too.
The commercial simply shows off the Galaxy Tab's capabilities in an Apple-ish sort of way. We've said all along that if any Android tablet has a chance to steal marketshare away from the iPad, it's the Samsung Galaxy Tab and this commercial, along with our extensive hands-on, seems to confirm our thought. Now all we need is to know is its price tag and when it will hit stores. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 4:10pm
Skype Doubles Down with 10-Person Video Chat
Skype announced today that the latest beta version of Skype 5.0 would up the ante in terms of group video chat, as well as introduce a more stable and sleeker experience for its Windows users. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 3:00pm
Sock It To Me With Socat
We've all been there. You want to isolate an issue with a server running on a port but want something quick and easy to verify if it is a host firewall problem or something else. Perhaps you are dealing with someone on the other end of the network that says it is a firewall problem. How you prove otherwise? Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 3:00pm
Nailed It (Not): Our First Twitter Post, Circa 2006
I often point to my first post on Twitter, the day it launched in 2006. Why? Mostly because of how wrong I was. Best line: "I imagine most users are not going to want to have all of their Twttr messages published on a public website." I also love that original vowel-free logo.
The first couple of comments to that post are classic as well: Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 2:45pm
Texting: It's Not Just for Teenagers Anymore
Lately, the discussion about texting has mostly focused on teenagers, who now often send hundreds of text messages per day. While voice calling is still the primary use of cell phones for adults, almost three quarters of all adults in the U.S. now send and receive text messages. According to a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the average adult texter sends and receives 10 messages per day, but a minority (4%) now sends more than 200 messages every day. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 2:42pm
iTunes Ping And Facebook Were Friends Yesterday. And I’m Still Connected.
There seems to be some confusion out there right now about iTunes Ping, Apple's new music social network, and Facebook. Some people seem to think it was never a part of iTunes, that Apple decided against connecting; while other reports say they think it was at one point integrated, but that it wasn't working and has since been removed. I can tell you for sure that yesterday Facebook Connect was a part of Ping -- because I used it.
When I first loaded iTunes 10 yesterday and started up Ping, connecting with Facebook was the first thing I did to find friends. At first, I will say that it didn't work. I hit the Connect button, entered my credentials, and nothing happened. But I tried again and it worked perfectly. I found a handful of Facebook friends who had just started using Ping as well and... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 2:39pm
Fora.TV Triples Traffic. Wait, That Many People Want Hour-Long Videos on Economics?
Fora.TV has always been playing a dangerous game—trying to sell long-form online video about intellectual ideas. That’s like trying to sell sunblock to the cast of Jersey Shore. Fora calls itself Hulu for “the Thinking Man’s Web.” (There’s a Thinking Man’s Web?)
Eighteen months after closing its $6 million series A round and long time magazine editor Blaise Zerega took over as CEO, Fora seems to be grinding it out. The traffic has tripled and it’s now streaming about three million videos per month, mostly captured from conferences and high-level events. Those aren’t close to YouTube numbers, but considering the intellectually demanding content-- think Timothy Geithner... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 2:37pm
Tablet Computers Will Thrive Because They Are Shareable
"...a tablet is, crucially, a more shareable computer. A laptop, with its fragile hinge-ware and space-gobbling keyboard, is just not comfy to share. A tablet is easier to bring to the caf�, easier to hand across the table or along the sofa, easier to seize in the heat of the moment, easier to hold up in triumph, easier to set aside when you need to meet someone's eyes. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 2:31pm
5 Plugins for Outlook Users with Gmail Envy
The announcement of Google's Gmail Priority Inbox likely made more than a few enterprise knowledge workers stuck with Microsoft Outlook and drowning in e-mail quite envious of Gmail. That is, if they weren't envious already. Marshall also took a look at a few plugins and services that are turning e-mail into a platform, including the incredible Rapportive. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 2:15pm
10 Things You Need to Know About Apple's New Social Network, Ping
Ping, Apple's new social network, is the standout feature in iTunes 10, the most recent update to Apple's music management application. Within Ping, you can find and follow your favorite bands and your friends as well as recommend or leave notes about the music you listen to. Ping adds a new layer to iTunes - a social layer focused on discovery, not only of new tracks you'll want to buy (as is the obvious goal), but it also lets you discover news from artists you care about, including concert updates, photos, videos and more. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 1:56pm
Look Out Yammer – Zyb Founder Joins Podio, The Hot New Social Work Startup
When Danish entrepreneur Tommy Ahlers sold his 'social phonebook' ZYB to Vodafone in 2008 for €31 million and joined the company, it didn't seem like he would stay forever at such a slow-moving corporate entity. And sure enough he has now left. But ever the restless entrepreneur he's decided against lying on a beach somewhere and careered headlong into a new startup which is poised to come out of stealth mode.
Ahlers has now invested in, and become the CEO, of Podio, a hot new startup out of his home town of Copenhagen. I'd heard excited whisperings of the company when I was in the city recently, and indeed, Podio has been around for one and a half years as a boostrapped project, but with big ideas. It's now open via invitations –... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 1:50pm
Google and AOL Renew Search Agreement for Another 5 Years
Google and AOL just announced that they have renewed their global search alliance for another five years. Google will continue to power search on all of AOLs properties. For the most part, the new agreement just reinforces the existing contract, but the two companies also plan to expand their current alliance to cover mobile search and AOLs videos will now be syndicated on YouTube. According to the latest data from Web analytics firm comScore, AOL currently accounts for 2.3% of the search market in the U.S. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 1:50pm
Reddit to Mainstream Media: We Ain't "Small" [Infographic]
Social news and bookmark site Reddit has been working lately to battle against its stereotyping as the less-significant, red-headed stepchild to Digg. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 1:25pm
Fwix Shifts From Local News To Places: “We Are Automating Patch”
For the past two years, Fwix has been building a hyperlocal news site for cities and neighborhoods around the country in a very automated fashion. Its homepage for every city has been three columns filled with recent news and blog headlines, along with other local data like weather (see second screenshot below). Today, it is scrapping that approach to become more of a hyperlocal places directory.
"We are automating Patch and building richer places pages and city pages," says CEO Darian Shirazi. With everyone on the Web crazy for Geo and trying to tap into local commerce, places directories are becoming more valuable. (They are also better for SEO). Whereas AOL's Patch is building... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 1:21pm
HipChat’s Enterprise Communication Platform Adds Video Chat And Guest Access
HipChat, a recently launched private instant messaging service for companies, has added support for voice and video chat as well as guest access.
Similar to Campfire, HipChat provides a simple application for communication within businesses. HipChat offers both a web and desktop client based on Adobe AIR that lets you chat with your entire team at once, or hold more private discussions with select team members. The application includes support for quick attachment sharing, notifications when you receive a message, and a searchable web archive for past messages. It's incredibly easy to use and setup and doesn't require a company email address. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 1:01pm
Hands-on Video With The Samsung Galaxy Tab (Spoiler: Wow)
Well, as promised, here’s a handy video of the Samsung Galaxy Tab in action. Apologies if it’s gets a little hairy at times—juggling two cameras while trying to navigate a GUI touchscreen isn’t exactly the easiest trick to pull off. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 12:52pm
Yammer 2.0 To Launch As A Powerful, Full-Fledged Social Network For The Enterprise
Since Yammer launched as the "Twitter for businesses" at TechCrunch 50 in 2008, the startup has continued to improve on its already solid product, releasing mobile apps and new desktop clients, adding threaded conversations, and more. The fact is that in just under two years, Yammer, which we use at TechCrunch for internal communications, is being used by more than Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 12:28pm
Hack of the Day: Speeding Up WordPress on a VPS
One of the most common suggestions to bloggers who use shared hosting is that they will be much better off with a VPS or a dedicated server. I agree in principle; however, this doesn't mean the server will run smoothly without a bit of tweaking. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 12:22pm
Google Chrome Turns 2 with Version 6 Release
Google is celebrating the second anniversary of its Google Chrome browser with the release of new stable and beta versions, bringing and even cleaner and simpler user interface and increased speed and performance. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 12:11pm
When Geeks Attack, Shanghai Edition (TCTV)
For some in Silicon Valley, Asia remains an alluring black box. A promising world with pockets of hyper growth, obscured by a tangled web of unfamiliar languages, customs, regulations and native ecosystems. Although the walls are coming down fast, the road to Asia's markets remains an intimidating one for many.
Enter Dave McClure, founder of 500 Startups (a recently launched $30M super angel fund) and Geeks On A Plane, a program that takes tech entrepreneurs and investors to emerging markets. In its own small way, Geeks On A Plane is attempting to bridge that gap between the Valley and the rest of the world. Earlier this year, roughly 55 "Geeks" traveled... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 12:08pm
EverFi Raises $11 Million For Financial Literacy Education Application
Washington D.C.-based startup EverFi has just raised $11 million in Series A funding from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from TomorrowVentures and independent investors including Michael Chasen, the CEO of Blackboard.
EverFi has created a SaaS application for schools to help educate young adults on financial literacy, student loan default prevention, filing taxes, credit card debt and more. The application's curriculum incorporates virtual worlds, gaming, social media and videos to help teach children these life skills. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 12:05pm
Twitter's New iPad App Shines, but Not Perfect
Twitter has just launched its first official iPad application and the reviews so far have been glowing. The new app offers a few notable features: panes for interacting with content within a stream, media which displays inline without slowing you down and gesture support for common Twitter actions, among other things. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 11:32am