Disney, Las Vegas Top Searched Travel Destinations in Early 2012
If search volume is any indication, Americans plan to spend their 2012 vacations at Disney or in Las Vegas, according to an evaluation of over 2.4 billion of the top travel-related queries performed by digital marketing intelligence firm AdGooroo. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Today, 2:30pm
123 Database APIs: GeoNames, Freebase and Yahoo Query Language
Our API directory now includes 123 database APIs. The newest is the BigTable API. The most popular, in terms of mashups, is the GeoNames API. We list 81 GeoNames mashups. Below you'll find some more stats from the directory, including the entire list of database APIs. Read more...
ProgrammableWeb, Today, 2:00pm
YuMe Adds Another $10 Million From WestSummit Capital
Online video advertising startup YuMe has picked up another $10 million in financing from WestSummit Capital, closing out a $22 million strategic round that was originally announced last November. The round was led by Samsung Ventures and also included Translink Capital.
YuMe founder Jayant Kadambi confirmed the raise, and told me by email that the funding will be used primarily to expand into more connected devices. YuMe provides a platform for delivering ads against online videos, but has recently been adding... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 12:12pm
New York Hardware Buffs Weigh In On China, Embracing Niches, And How To Start Making Things
Earlier this morning, our own John Biggs was joined on stage by a handful of New York-based makers who have made a name for themselves by building physical things (or in one case, building something that builds other things). Biggs kicked off the panel with a simple question: — can we bring manufacturing back?
Bre Pettis, CEO of Makerbot Industries, has two shifts of workers putting together all of his Makerbots in Brooklyn, and had a bit of advice for hardware creators looking to shift production to China. He recommended that until makers need to produce runs of 50,000-100,000 units, they’re much better off keeping the production process in the United States.... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 11:58am
Amazon Partners With Paramount, Brings Hundreds More Movies To Prime Instant Video Service
Amazon is continuing to grow its collection of streaming video titles at Amazon Prime Instant Video, and is today announcing another new agreement with Paramount Pictures bringing "hundreds" of new movies to the service. This deal isn't as large as March's partnership with Discovery, which saw some 3,000 new titles added, but it does introduce what are arguably more big-name movies. Included in the deal are titles like Mission: Impossible 3, Braveheart, Forrest Gump, Mean Girls, Nacho Libre and Clueless, to name a few, and Amazon... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 11:35am
WhosHere Launches Anonymous Video Chat
As evidenced by the success of Chatroulette, people get a kick out of seeing each other (anonymously) on video. Taking that to heart, WhosHere - an app that has allowed countless people to meet and greet each other in meatspace - has launched a video chat service that lets folks connect when and where they want. Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 11:30am
Retro Beer Company Churchkey, A New Tech Investor Darling, Will Expand To San Francisco Next Month
Beer may or may not be the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about TechCrunch Disrupt, but today, CrunchFund's MG Siegler took the stage at our New York conference to talk to Churchkey's founders: Adrian Grenier, who is well-known for his role in the TV series Entourage, Justin Hawkins and Ryan Sowards. Churchkey, which was founded in 2010 and is based in the Pacific Northwest with offices in the beer-loving cities of Seattle, Wash. and Portland, Ore., recently attracted a number of tech... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 11:29am
Rovio’s FB App, Angry Birds Friends, Flies Out Of Beta With Tournament Mode, New Levels & More
Well, well, well. As if you couldn't get your fix of sling-shotting irascible fowl on every other mobile and social platform known to man, Rovio announced this morning that Angry Birds for Facebook (officially known as Angry Birds Friends) has finally done flown the coop and left the warm nest of its beta. Avian double-speak aside, what does that mean exactly?
It means that, having gone through the requisite user testing, tweaking, and multi-billion-dollar IPO-ing, Rovio's Facebook app is ready... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 11:11am
U.S. Launches Digital Roadmap To Open Up Government Data And Court Developers
There's all sorts of data that the government has, but very little of it is actually accessible by developers. But the U.S. Government is trying to change that: Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park and Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel announced a new initiative within the government to open up data that was previously locked up in government documents and arcane backend systems. That will allow developers to create new applications and services based on that data.
With the launch of the new digital road map, the U.S. government is hoping to increase the way that users can access data in many different ways. It's also designed to decrease inefficiency in... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 11:07am
Qwiki Launches A Publishing Platform For ABC News And Others
Qwiki, the startup that won Disrupt in 2010, is announcing a new platform today for bloggers and other online publishers.
The company's initial product basically assembled a multimedia "story" around Wikipedia articles, with images, videos, maps, and more. But the vision was bigger — to present a new kind of information experience. Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 11:05am
Mint.com App Update: Now Split Transactions
Mint.com iOS users now have the ability to create and (more importantly) edit budgets directly on their iPad/iPhone. Previously, editing functionality was only available at the main Mint website. Additionally, users can also split transactions, giving them a better more granular look at their financial picture.
The main thrust of this update includes:
Create and edit a budget while out and about: Set up budgets from your iPad or iPhone and edit them — wherever and whenever you want. Also, the new budget slider lets you set more realistic budgets in increments for more... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 10:59am
ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi’s Advice To Startups: Stay Lean, Don’t Listen To The Nay-Sayers & Hire The Right People
This morning at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012, Chris Dixon, co-founder and partner at Founder’s Collective (and co-founder of SiteAdvisor and Hunch, acquired by McAfee and eBay, respectively), sat down with ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi to talk about ZocDoc's road to success. The company, for those unfamiliar, is a professional booking platform for doctors. Users go online to search, find and book a doctor, dentist or other health care professional, and can even make same-day appointments thanks to ZocDoc's real-time access to doctors' schedules.
Although ZocDoc has now raised $95 million in... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 10:58am
Startup Alley Is Doin’ It, And Doin’ It, And Doin’ It Well
Every time I think TC Disrupt's Startup Alley can't get any better, it does. TC Europe Editor Mike Butcher and I ventured into the chaos, accosted at every turn by startups from across the world. We even had a startup, iLiftOff, fly all the way in from Mumbai on a 21-hour flight.
It's almost a shame that we can't have all the Startup Alley companies in the Battlefield, but at the same time, the beauty of the alley is that we can talk to them for far longer than six minutes. And we often do. Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 10:34am
Rubicon Project Acquires Mobsmith To Expand Into Mobile Ads
Online advertising company Rubicon Project just announced that it's getting into the mobile market by acquiring a startup called Mobsmith.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in the initial announcement. I've asked Rubicon for more details and will update if I hear back. Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 10:04am
Target Rolls Out Shopkick Integration Nationwide
shopkick, the location-based shopping app backed by Greylock and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is having its biggest rollout yet — Target says it's making the service available in its stores nationwide.
Target was already announced as a shopkick partner, but until now, it was limited to testing integration in seven cities. Now, thanks to what the company says were "rave reviews," it's expanding its shopkick integration to all of its 1,764 stores in the United States, making it the largest shopkick retailer. Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 10:00am
Enterprise APIs: Where to Now?
Cloud, mobile and social media are now mainstream computing concepts. Today, consumer and business users all demand access to applications and data from multiple devices, inside and outside of enterprises, on a continuous basis. As a result, users interact with an enterprise through many different interfaces which all converge at the API layer. A well-executed enterprise API strategy will ensure API usage is tracked and security is achieved, enabling enterprises to create more selling channels, improve engagement with customers and prospects and offer more value to partners. Read more...
ProgrammableWeb, Today, 10:00am
Five Questions A Good Link Builder Should Be Able To Answer
The days of being a half-assed link builder are over. For those looking to hire (or perhaps fire) a link builder, be it in-house or via an agency, you can confidently identify the ability and savvy of a link builder with just five questions. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Today, 10:00am
McAfee: Mobile Malware Explodes, Increases 1,200% In Q1 2012
Security and anti-spam firm McAfee today reported that it saw a massive uptick in mobile malware last quarter. Mobile malware has "exploded," the company said (PDF), "with a significant increase on Android devices. In addition, McAfee also found a slight increase in malware targeting the Mac, but the report notes that this trend was not "extreme." Despite the increase in mobile and Mac malware, as well as password-stealing Trojans, the good news in today's report is that... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 9:50am
Welcome To Hardware Alley At TechCrunch Disrupt NYC!
For the past two days, web companies and mobile apps have peppered our Startup Alley here at Disrupt NYC, but today we're doing something a little different. Those startups have cleared out for Disrupt's first ever Hardware Alley, where we turn the spotlight onto some wonderful hardware projects.
There's plenty of great stuff on display here today, and all these devices run the gamut -- the folks from MakerBot Industries have set up shop here, as well as the makers of the MicroStylus. Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 9:44am
Today’s Google Doodle Is An Awesome, Playable Moog Synthesizer
While we don't make a habit out of covering every iteration of the Google Doodle, today's version is especially awesome. The doodle is celebrating the birth date of Dr. Robert Moog, the inventor of the electronic analog Moog Synthesizer. The what?, you may ask. The synthesizer was an instrument Moog created in the mid-1960's, which took the music world by storm, and was picked up by artists like The Beatles, The Doors, Stevie Wonder, Kraftwerk, and others. It transformed how people thought about electronic music. Instead of producing a "synthetic" sound, as previous synthesizers did, the Moog version created a richer, organic sound. Today, some 50 years... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 9:20am
Former Twitter CTO Greg Pass Becomes Founding Entrepreneurial Officer For Cornell’s NYC Tech Campus
In its latest move to get top technical students to New York and started on new projects, the city's Cornell campus has named a top technologist to a new position. Greg Pass, the former CTO of Twitter and previously the co-founder of search startup Summize, is now its Founding Entrepreneurial Officer.
I'll be getting the details on what the hire means when I talk with Dan Huttenlocher, Cornell's dean for the new campus, later today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 9:19am
Social Media Marketer Vitrue Has Been Bought By Oracle For $300 Million
TechCrunch has discovered and confirmed that software giant Oracle has bought social marketing platform Vitrue for $300 million. [Update: A press release has confirmed the buy at an undisclosed price, though we know it to be $300 million.] As if Oracle didn't offer enough products and services already, the acquisition will give it a strong Facebook marketing platform to offer its enterprise clients.
Vitrue had taken $33 million in funding over the years and grown to become... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 9:00am
BodyMedia Raises $12 Million Funding Round Led By Comcast Ventures
BodyMedia, one of the growing number of companies that offers wearable body sensors, just announced that it has raised a $12 million funding round led by Comcast Ventures. The company's products, including its BodyMedia FIT on-body monitoring system, currently focuses on tracking users' activity level, but the company plans to use the money raised in this round to focus on products related to chronic diseases like diabetes, as well as remote elder care and sleep disorders. BodyMedia is a new investment for Comcast Ventures.... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 9:00am
TechCrunch Disrupt NYC LIVE: Day Three! #TCDisrupt
Hundreds have entered. But only one will walk away with the coveted Disrupt Cup. Who will it be? Stick around to find out but in the meantime we've got a rockstar lineup on our final day, including a sit down with a handful of local maker types, Chi-Hua Chien and a Hollywood star.
If you're just joining us be sure to check out previous coverage of the show here.
Here's what's on tap for today: Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 8:55am
Harvesting Questions for Content Ideas
Using popular questions to fuel content ideation is one way to unearth keyword ideas. So where and how do you find popular questions for your niche to build content around? Here are some ideas, which range from pedestrian to more advanced tactics. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Today, 8:00am
Paid Search Peak Times: Gain Hourly Insights About Your Competitors
Taking a deep dive into the number of competitors that appear alongside your ads, as well as hourly and daily costs per click, can provide valuable insights that help you optimize to variances throughout the day and respond to consumer demand. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Today, 6:00am
5 Essential Components of Localized Marketing Strategy for National Brands
Scalable, automated technology can help national brands overcome slower national competitors and smaller local competitors who lack marketing support. National brands should make sure to consider these initiatives in any local marketing effort. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Today, 4:00am
How the Filter Bubble Impacts Google, Bing Search & What It Means for SEOs
With the continuing evolution of social search, you can never know too much about your audience. SEOs should evaluate whether they're being filtered out of users social bubbles of influence and becoming prone to unintentional information isolation. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Today, 2:00am
Bob Moog Rocks Google Homepage With Synthesizer Logo You Can Play
Google’s logo has transformed into an analog synthesizer, developed in HTML5 so you can actually play it online, record your own tracks, and then share them. The Google Doodle is in honor of the 78th birthday of electronic music pioneer Bob Moog. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Today, 1:00am
5 Common SMB Online Marketing Optimization Issues Solved: Q&A with Lee Odden
SMBs have an uphill battle in the online marketing arena; smaller budgets and less manpower may leave them feeling like David to big business Goliaths. Industry vet and “Optimize” author Lee Odden offers solutions to five common SMB challenges. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 5:00pm
Google Told to Fix 4 Areas in Search, Advertising to End Antitrust Inquiry
European antitrust chiefs are offering Google a chance to end the 18-month investigation into alleged monopoly abuses by the company. U.S. senators say the deal is a positive step forward in addressing the concerns they also have with the firm. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 3:00pm
Geoloqi Adds Powerful Location Module to Appcelerator
Cross platform Development Tools have been steadily gaining adoption among developers. Geoloqi, a platform for location-based services has tapped into one such platform, Appcelerator to provide a powerful location services component that aims to make life easier for developers who have adopted Appcelerator and are planning to provide location awareness in their applications. Read more...
ProgrammableWeb, Yesterday, 1:23pm
Bing Offers 5 Tips for Google Penguin & Panda Victims
Bing Senior Product Manager Duane Forrester posted five tips for webmasters to help diversify their traffic sources and avoid major losses during algorithm changes, using a poem about Google’s Penguin and Panda updates to illustrate his point. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 1:00pm
53 Microblogging APIs: Twitter, TwitPic and What The Trend
Our API directory now includes 53 microblogging APIs. The newest is the Sohu Microblogging API. The most popular, in terms of mashups, is the Twitter API. We list 708 Twitter mashups. Below you’ll find some more stats from the directory, including the entire list of microblogging APIs.
In terms of the technical details, REST and XML [...] Read more...
ProgrammableWeb, Yesterday, 11:00am
Google AdWords Auction Insights Reveals Who You're Competing Against
The new Auction Insights report answers the question about who competes in a given auction. It shows the display URL domain of the advertiser who is your competitor in that auction. This key data compares you to your competitors in the auction. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 10:00am
SEO, Why You Are Doing it Wrong
Trent Harbour's site was bitten by Penguin. This is a cautionary tale of missteps towards the problem of ranking on search engines. It is also an examination into why small businesses are completely at a loss as to what constitutes “ethical” SEO. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 8:00am
Google & Link Schemes - Several Shades of Gray
What Google says about link schemes is important to understand. Understanding the gray area between what Google says and what (currently) works is a different matter. This post examines each of the examples of link schemes provided by Google. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 6:00am
Instagram for Video: Searching for the Next Big Thing
Instagram has been the biggest story as of late, with its lofty $1 billion acquisition by Facebook. Will SocialCam or Viddy be the one eventually anointed the Instagram of video? Here’s what we can learn by examining the online buzz and search data. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 4:00am
6,000 APIs: It’s Business, It’s Social and It’s Happening Quickly
The last 1,000 APIs in our directory were added in the shortest time ever. It was just over three months ago that we reached the 5,000 API milestone. What's new? The trends are actually getting harder to spot, like trying to explain the difference in the weather between now and five minutes ago. Previous trends, such as social and mobile are certainly continuing. And business uses of APIs are increasing, both in terms of those listed in the directory and our discussions with developers and providers. Read more...
ProgrammableWeb, Yesterday, 3:00am
Record 9.5 Billion Video Ads Were Viewed in April 2012
181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in April, comScore Video Metrix reported. Video ads saw another record-breaking month with nearly 9.5 billion views, representing 1 in 5 videos viewed online that month. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, Yesterday, 2:00am
Wishpond Launches Mall360 To Bring Your Local Shopping Mall Online
Like Milo before it, Wishpond launched in late 2010 to build a local search engine that aggregates realtime inventory and product listings from brick and mortar retail stores -- from big chains to mom and pop shops. The startup has since focused its efforts on developing social commerce solutions for retailers, launching tools like Social Store, which allows any... Read more...
TechCrunch, May 21, 9:34pm
Doodle 4 Google 2012 Winner Travels to Pirate Times
It’s the coloring contest that blows all others out of the water. Second-grader Dylan Hoffman of Wisconsin scored a $30,000 college scholarship, a $50,000 technology grant for his school, and a Chromebook as the winner of Doodle 4 Google 2012. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 21, 9:00pm
Machinima Gets $35M In Funding, Led By Google
After weeks of speculation, online video distributor Machinima announced Monday that it has closed a $35 million funding round led by Google, which also included existing investors Redpoint Ventures and MK Capital. The new financing comes as Google's YouTube has been investing heavily in bringing in all sorts of new original programming.
The Machinima network is the largest single page view generator for YouTube, with more than 1.6 billion video views in the month of April. And YouTube is an invaluable partner for Machinima, as it is the company's primary distribution and monetization platform. With the funding, Machinima says it will invest in content and global sales, as... Read more...
TechCrunch, May 21, 7:16pm
Disrupt NYC Day 1: Your Startup Battlefield Companies
Our very first day of Disrupt NYC is over and the conference started off with a bang. We had memorable chats, dove into fashion for a bit, hung out with the Startup Alley companies and witnessed 15 startups launch their products in our first day of the Startup Battlefield.
Even though we will have brand-new companies launching tomorrow while fighting for the ultimate prize of $50,000 and the Disrupt Cup, we wanted to take a moment to highlight all that we saw today. There were some brilliant companies, so be sure to check all of them out below. The Internet was buzzing with positive words about each. This is going to be a tough battle. Which... Read more...
TechCrunch, May 21, 7:12pm
Facebook Privacy Lawsuit Seeks $15 Billion
Hours before its IPO, Facebook was hit with a $15 billion lawsuit, alleging that the social network knowingly infringed on user privacy when it used browser cookies to track activity. The suit included more than 20 complainants. Read more...
Search Engine Watch Blog, May 21, 7:00pm
Babelverse Is Out To Democratize Translation
Babelverse won the opportunity to appear at TechCrunch Disrupt from the Startup Alley and with little notice ended up giving a slick pitch. Essentially this is a solution for universal speech translation, powered by a global community of human interpreters: it means anyone can be an interpreter. We covered its launch back in January but here's a quick rundown.
Machine translation, as we know, is not reliable. So what we're looking here is a marketplace for translation.
People practice to interpret and... Read more...
TechCrunch, May 21, 6:21pm
Sprint’s EVO 4G LTE Has Cleared U.S. Customs, Pre-Orders To Be Filled As Early As May 24
Sprint's launch plans for the HTC EVO 4G LTE were ruined last week when shipments of their shiny new Android handset were held up by United States Customs, but we're hearing that they may been hitting doorsteps and store shelves sooner than expected.
According to Sprint, the devices are now currently sitting safely in Sprint's warehouses and are expected to start trickling out into the world "on or around May 24." Read more...
TechCrunch, May 21, 6:19pm
Tagbrand Gives Fashionistas An App To Check-In Their Brands
"All people wear clothes!" declared one of Tagbrand's founders on stage at Disrupt today. That's true, but let's review.
DailyBooth was (is still perhaps?) a phenomenon for a time as people became accustomed to sharing their daily lives in a more quirky manner than mere video can afford. (Ok, OK, it's a bunch of teenagers sharing their zits, but work with me here, people). Now Tagbrand wants to apply that model to fashion, but with a tagging twist.
The model is simple enough. Take and upload photos of what branded clothes you are wearing and tag them. Effectively, it's a photo check-in for brands, or 'Foursquare for fashion', if you... Read more...
TechCrunch, May 21, 6:00pm