Techcrunch
Quora Investor Peter Thiel: “The Samwers Are Never Going To Clone Quora,”
5 hours 3 minutes ago
There’s been a lot of armchair valuation punditry across the Valley this week. As the Facebook IPO looms, our intricately entwined ecosystem of startups and investors seeks to benefit from the domino effect of a population feeling flush with cash. This is the picture that the WSJ painted in its Quora funding announcement yesterday, headline: “Former Facebook Hands Capitalize on Buzz.” Okay, sure, smart people will always adapt to a favorable environment — but the WSJ missed a deeper and more long-term dynamic at play.
“We intend to use some of this funding as a cushion in case of macroeconomic changes,” wrote ...
Disney Video Launches In Beta, Bringing Kid-Friendly Clips And Trailers To All Your Devices
Yesterday
There’s a new product that just came out of Disney Interactive Labs — a video portal for clips, movie trailers, and even a collection of curated YouTube videos, all designed to be watched online or on any of your mobile devices. The new Disney Video site, located at video.disney.com, combines the best of Disney past and present, with a whole lot of content that might not be found anywhere else.
It’s too early for us to know a whole lot about the site — we checked out the portal after it was announced on Twitter by Henry Work, Senior Software Engineer ...
Positionly Raises $300,000 For Search Engine Ranking From Point Nine, Others
Yesterday
Search engine ranking startup Positionly has secured $300,000 seed funding from Berlin-based led by seed VC Point Nine Capital and joined by Angels Mariusz Gralewski and Michal Skrzynski.
The idea behind Positionly’s service is that small business owners don’t need to know about SEO. Its clients already include TD Bank Opower, ESPN and TUI. Users can either enter search keywords manually or upload them from .csv files or a Google analytics account. The Poland-based service then tracks search engine rankings over time, generating simple search engine reports. Pricing ranges from $19 to $99 per month.
However, its service proposition is not ...
Palantir Technologies Nabs $56M In New Funding, SEC Filing Shows
Yesterday
Palantir Technologies, the big data analysis and security software company founded in 2004 by a team of ex-PayPal employees including Peter Thiel, has raised $56 million in new funding, according to a document filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
This is by no means Palantir’s first go-round with venture capital investors. This is the company’s 7th round of funding, according to our records — back in October 2011, Palantir closed on a $70 million round of funding that served as its Series F. That raise was held at a $2.5 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch sources.
We’ve reached out ...
Sleepover Time! All-Night Hackathon Precedes IPO At Facebook Headquarters
Yesterday
Carrying on in the esteemed tradition of Facebook hackathons, there will be an all-nighter at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters that culminates with CEO Mark Zuckerberg ringing in the NASDAQ bell ahead of the company’s much, much, much anticipated IPO.
There is an internal event page for the big day that has about a thousand Facebook employees RSVP-ing for the bell ringing early on Friday morning. We can’t tell if there are any other big festivities prepared ahead of time. It’s all up in the air. Some people may dress up though. We don’t know if the gong will be ...
How Personal Capital Wants To Bring Money Management Into The Internet Age [TCTV]
Yesterday
It’s been amazing how technology-enabled aggregation can make certain things in life so much easier — spaces such such as travel planning, real estate searching, and news reading come to mind. But when it comes to the financial space, that disruption hasn’t quite happened yet. Most of us have a retirement account here, a checking and savings account there, a credit card or two somewhere else, and so on. And we still deal with each one on its own. Getting one picture of your entire financial portfolio is not a very common thing.
That’s where Personal Capital wants to come in. ...
Why The Internet Doesn’t Make Us Care More About Politics
Yesterday
American politics used to be fun: frequent political carnivals in the 19th century would mix parties, parades, and political speeches in an endless stream of local civic life. As a result, America had an astonishingly high turnout, between 70-90%, in presidential and local elections. Yet, the Internet has never quite captured the emotional gravity of real-life engagement, and keeps tripping up multi-million dollar campaigns designed to inject life into an otherwise passive electorate.
For example, take two technology initiatives that were widely predicted to dramatically increase democratic engagement: Obama’s 2008 campaign and Americans Elect. Despite the hype, Barack Obama’s juggernaut of ...
It’s Time For A Larger iPhone
Yesterday
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Apple is currently ordering larger screens for the next iPhone. With the usual nonsense, the WSJ cited people familiar with the matter and stated these screens measure at least 4-inches diagonally. Production is set to begin next month, they say.
The Journal better be right, though. A 3.5-inch screen is just too small now. At this point to say anything to the contrary is pure fanboi nonsense. The standard argument that consumers don’t want a large phone is tired and overused. Besides, it’s effectively proven wrong by the 20 million Galaxy S ...
Bitly Kinda Says It’s Not Raising $20M, But Also Hints That It Is
Yesterday
Is link shortener Bitly raising $20 million in new funding? The Verge says it is. In response to my email, a company spokesperson denied The Verge’s story, but in vague enough terms that it could probably turn around and announce a new round in the next few weeks or months.
Here’s what the spokesperson told me:
Want to quickly let you know that they’re always discussing potential funding and stay in touch with potential investors on an ongoing basis. Though, this article is not based on any facts.
I’ll work with the folks at bitly to connect with you for the next ...
More Google+ In Gmail: Improved Circle Integration, Circle Search and Quick Access To Contact Details
Yesterday
The folks over at Google just love their Google+ social network and more and more Google+ features have been creeping into Gmail lately as well. Today, Google is bringing even more of Google+ to its email client. With this update, Google is especially focusing on adding a deeper integration with Google+ circles. You will now, for example, see profile photos from people in your circles when you select a circle in the left sidebar. You can click on those images to search for email from a specific contact. In addition, if you really take your Google+ circles seriously, you’ll be ...
Viacom Gives Up Fight Against Time Warner Cable, Adds Channels to TWC iPad App
Yesterday
Customers of Time Warner Cable have some reason to rejoice today, as the cable company has gotten the go-ahead to add channels like MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central to its live streaming iPad app. The addition comes after the channels’ owner Viacom has settled its differences and resolved litigation with Time Warner Cable.
The legal fight erupted last year, after Time Warner Cable released its iPad app, which lets subscribers stream live shows to tablets inside their homes. While many networks grumbled about the app, Viacom was most vocal in rejecting the app, taking its distribution partner to court over whether ...
How Many Daily Downloads Does It Take To Reach The Top Of The App Store?
Yesterday
It’s hard to underestimate how important ranking in Apple’s top 25 in the iTunes store is for mobile app developers. After all, the top 25 is probably the single most important app discovery mechanism for most iOS users. But how many downloads does it take to rank in the top 25? Mobile app store analytics firm Distimo today published some interesting data that answers just this question. Turns out, in the U.S. store, the answer currently is about 38,400 daily downloads for free iPhone apps and 3,530 for paid iPhone apps. To rank in the top 25 per category, of ...
Third Pivot’s The Charm? Events Site Ravn Becomes Flash Sales Site Touch Of Modern
Yesterday
No one ever called a limit on the number pivots a company can do, right? So here’s the latest at a company we’ve been watching for a while now. RAVN, an event planning and sharing app that itself was the product of a pivot from the developers behind “experiences marketplace” Skyara, has sent a letter out to its users telling them that the app is getting shut down at the end of this month. In RAVN’s place, the founders are starting up yet another business — their third — also loosely based around events but with a decidedly more commercial bent: ...
This Won’t End Well: Toyota Connects With Nintendo DS For In-Car Navigation Interface
Yesterday
For some inexplicable reason, Nintendo and Toyota have teamed up to turn the Nintendo DS into a navigational remote control, thereby allowing drivers (although I hope passengers do most of the fiddling) to set their routes using their game consoles.
The service, called Kuruma de DS lets you see map and destination info as well as tour information as you drive through town. The service slightly gamifies the experience by adding a POI saving option.
The compatible Toyota Smart Navi system costs about $3,000 while the game itself costs $92 – quite a bit of cash to simulate the map screens in ...
Forrester: 32.1 Million U.S. Households Now Access Online Video On Their TVs
Yesterday
Almost 115 million households in the U.S. currently own at least one TV set and 36 million own four or more. That’s a huge market and as Apple, Google and Microsoft try to wrestle more of this business away from the traditional content and hardware players, the old-school cable and satellite providers now suddenly have to content with this new group of challengers that, until now, barely registered on their radars. According to Forrester analyst James McQuivey, it’s Microsoft that’s winning this platform war so far.
Why? Microsoft, MCquivey argues, currently has a massive lead over its competitors thanks to its ...
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