The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Disrupt NYC Early Bird Registration Extended Until April 30th
- Zeel, The Zocdoc For Alternative Healthcare Providers, Lands Another Investment
- Spain Gets Its Own Netflix Today With Youzee’s Public Launch
- Connected Cars And Bio-Acoustical Transmission: A Peek Into AT&T’s Research Lab
- 20 Teams Pitch At Seedcamp Estonia
- Kids Send 3D GoPro Cameras Into Space, Get Back Stunning Footage
- Nielsen Finds U.S. Hispanics Tops In Mobile, Social Activity
- This Speaker Dock Is Made Entirely Of Bamboo, No Electricity Required
- Video Social Network Runfaces Takes On Sean Parker’s Airtime
- Brand-To-Fan Platform Crowdtap Expands To Facebook & Mobile, Sees Revenue Soar
- Galaxy S III Reportedly Revealed In Vietnamese Hands-On Video
- AT&T’s AVP Of Technical Research Explains The New Watson Speech API
- Seeing Is Believing: This Nokia Ad Was Filmed Entirely With The 808 PureView Supercamera Phone
- HTC Is Done With QWERTY Keyboard Phones
- Applications About To Close For Wayra London Incubator
- VCs Invested $5.8B In 758 Deals In Q1 2012, Total Dollars And Deals Both Down From Last Quarter
- Moms We’d Like To Fund
- Rewinery Now Shipping To San Francisco, Potentially My Liver
- Latest Rumors Peg An LTE iPhone For An October Release, LiquidMetal To Be Used For The Casing
- Travel Data Startup Duetto Raises $2.1M From Trinity, Marc Benioff, Many More
| Disrupt NYC Early Bird Registration Extended Until April 30th Posted: 20 Apr 2012 09:06 AM PDT  TechCrunch Disrupt NYC will be here before we know it and we have been working incredibly hard to make it especially amazing this year. This incomparable conference is being held next month, May 21st – 23rd, following our ever popular Hackathon, which is taking place on May 19th through the 20th, where red bull gulpers and pizza eaters will gather together to hack a product within 24 hours. During the three days of Disrupt NYC, we will launch over two dozen startups in the Startup Battlefield competition, where startups from all over come to battle it out for the ultimate prize of $50,000 and the Disrupt Cup. Winners of past years have included Shaker, Getaround, Qwiki, Soluto and many more. Disrupt NYC will also bring together the best and smartest people in technology, where we will discuss how the Internet is disrupting industry after industry. We have already announced many amazing speakers and judges, and will continue to announce more as we get closer to the event. We are incredibly excited to have our very own Michael Arrington back with us this year, along with MG Siegler. Both will be on stage and will be helping judge the Battlefield competition. Who knows what could happen? This event is going to be fantastic. Last year in New York, we had over 2,000 attendees and had over 500 hackers join us. It’s really an event you do not want to miss. We have extended Early Bird registration until April 30th. That means you have ten more days to get the best price on Disrupt tickets. We will also have ticket giveaways and more announcements and surprises coming up week after week, so be sure to be on the lookout for those. We hope to see all of you there. Get your tickets now.
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| Zeel, The Zocdoc For Alternative Healthcare Providers, Lands Another Investment Posted: 20 Apr 2012 09:00 AM PDT  You may have heard of Zocdoc, the site that lets you search for doctors based on location, specialty, what insurance providers they accept, and then book appointments instantly. Zocdoc brought a simple and effective solution to a problem that frustrated consumers for year (the time consuming nature of physician search), and has blown up as result. Earlier this year, Zeel launched to bring Zocdoc’s model to alternative healthcare providers, like massage therapists, personal trainers, nutritionists, and acupuncturists, allowing users to easily search for and book appointments with these providers. To accompany its launch, Zeel raised $1.5 million in funding from Matt Ocko of Archimedes Capital, Esther Dyson, Ken Cron, and a host of other angels. Today, only three months later, the startup is adding another round of funding, led by Prolog Ventures, a life sciences VC firm based out of St. Louis. The round also included previous investors Ken Cron, Tim Kendall, and Eric Ober, as well as new investors like CEO of Shopwell.com and EIR at IDEO, Brian Witlin, Ritesh Veera, and FAO Ventures Founder Farooq Oomerbhoy. The team isn’t disclosing the size of the around, but we’ve heard it’s close to the size of its first round. Really the second tranche of a two-part seed round. As part of the new investment, Ilya Nykin, the co-founder and managing director of Prolog, and Cron, an angel investor and board member of LogMeIn, Computer Associates, and Midway Games, will join the startup’s board of directors. At launch in January, Zeel had about 1,000 practitioners on board, a number that has since grown to 2,300. These practitioners are spread across 11 different cities, with about half located in New York. Why the disparity? Two reasons: Zeel is based in New York and wanted to reach critical mass in the local market before expanding, and between 10 and 12 percent of all health and wellness appointments in the U.S. happen in NYC. That being said, there are approximately 750K health and wellness providers in the U.S., Zeel CEO Samer Hamadeh tells us, and the startup eventually wants to list them all. Of course, the highest densities of providers are in the top 20 metro areas, so over the course of the year, Zeel will begin filling in the blanks. But, “I’ve never gotten acupuncture or a massage,” you say, “so why should I care”? Well, my friend, in case you haven’t noticed, the cost of healthcare in this country is fairly high, making a good case for preventative and alternative approaches to medicine. Instead of paying for the astronomical cost of hospital care, surgery, or drugs, many are turning to preventative methods of healthcare and treatment. And this only going to continue as consumers get over the stigma attached to anything with the word “alternative” in it. Beyond its 2,300 providers, Zeel connects consumers to an additional 30K qualified preventative and alternative health practitioners, plus some original content to help guide consumer decisions. (It also added chiropractors last month.) Obviously, when it comes to treatment, and your health, quality is essential. Hamadeh says that these aren’t the type of massage therapists you’ll find on Groupon, they’re vetted, certified experts. While Zeel allows consumers to search for health and wellness experts by price, location, years of experience, and certification, the real key is search by availability. At this point, Zeel is plugged into about half of their providers’ schedules, so they have the ability to show consumers when the business has open spots. This is huge. It means that users get to pick and choose and book up to the last minute, while offering providers the opportunity to fill in the gaps in their schedules. If open slots expire, that’s a sunk cost. (For local businesses, scheduling is a huge problem, especially as it relates to daily deals. See here.) As to its business model, it’s a bit similar to TaskRabbit, in that they’re the middleman between consumers and providers. If users book an appointment, Zeel charges a 12 or 13 percent fee at the point of the credit card transaction. This means they net about $9 a transaction. This means that there’s no advertising on the site, and it’s not really lead gen either, and most importantly, consumers don’t pay anything extra. Up next? The Zeel CEO says that the company is in the process of developing mobile apps, which will show up this year, and it’s also working on a loyalty points program. Zeel was founded by husband-and-wife team Alison Harmelin and Samer Hamadeh. Samer is the former CEO of Vault.com and EIR at Lightspeed Venture Partners. For more, check out Zeel at home here.
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| Spain Gets Its Own Netflix Today With Youzee’s Public Launch Posted: 20 Apr 2012 08:47 AM PDT  Spain is getting its own version of Netflix, thanks to a company called Youzee, which exits its private beta period today. Like Netflix, Youzee offers streaming movies and TV on-demand, but it also features titles for rent, too. The company has agreements with a number of distributors, including BBC, Sony, Disney, Fox International Channels, TVE, Telemundo and more. To kick off its launch, Youzee is offering new users to try out the service for free. New users can watch up to 10 hours from Youzee’s catalog for free, without entering in their credit card information. Another option invites users to try out Youzee for 30 days for free, if they’re willing to hand over their payment data in advance. Both offers provide access to the entire catalog, and will include the ability to stream from desktop, tablet or mobile. After the free trial ends, Youzee’s subscription service is 6.99 euros monthly to continue watching, plus the option to rent out of catalog content for 2.99 or 4.99 (HD). In terms of content, while the company may have deals in place with several distributors, clicking on them from the drop-down box provided sometimes leads you to an empty section – so, clearly access to content is not on par with U.S.-based Netflix, for example. The service also includes social sharing options built-in, which let its users post to Facebook and Twitter. Based in Madrid, Youzee describes itself as a startup with “an international outlook,” and the company previously told us that it plans to develop the model in other European countries in the future. The service launched into private beta in December 2011, and now counts nearly 50,000 users, according to the ticker on its website.
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| Connected Cars And Bio-Acoustical Transmission: A Peek Into AT&T’s Research Lab Posted: 20 Apr 2012 08:36 AM PDT  Yesterday, I was lucky enough to venture into the depths of AT&T’s New York offices and check out the Research Lab. In essence, AT&T has about a zillion APIs that relate to cloud computing, navigation, translation, and a plethora of other fun technology, and its researchers then take those platforms and create really interesting products. We met up with Don Henderson, who’s built an app called Got My Stuff, which basically makes sure that you aren’t leaving anything at home when you get in the car. Using RFID tags, the car will instantly scan its own contents as you twist the key in the ignition. Anything you’ve previously tagged, including a phone, wallet, bag, laptop, or sunglasses, will be displayed on a check list. If you’ve forgotten it, the check list will notify you. You can even change the list of items based on where you’re going. If you’re headed to work, you’ll likely need very different items than you would if you were driving your kids to school. The idea is that car OEMs will build this system right into their cars, so that it’s up and running as you make your purchase. Another cool prototype we saw is bio-acoustical transmission. It’s a bit complex, but at its core the idea is that even the slightest movement in your body creates vibrations in your bones (and thus, noise). If a sensor is placed on my wrist, it can detect the noises I’m making through tiny finger gestures, and a command can be attached to those gestures. But developer Brian Amento took this a step further, realizing that a phone could transfer those vibrations from myself to another system. In this case, it’s a locked door. So Brian built an app to mark whether or not you’re the owner of a house, or just a visiting friend. If you’re the owner, the door will automatically unlock and open once you touch the handle, as long as you’re touching the phone or any other sensor that can pick up your vibrations. If you’re a visitor, the window in the door will become translucent and the system will announce you as the visitor to anyone chilling in the house. Very cool, to be sure. Last but certainly not least, we got the chance to check out a connected Porsche model that was built in conjunction with AT&T, QNX, and Panasonic. The car employs AT&T’s Watson Speech API (so that you can talk to it), along with AT&T’s LTE network and cloud computing infrastructure. By using those APIs, the car can take information from the driver and integrate that request with the cars internal systems like GPS to bring up local shops, or perform other tasks. As you can see in the video, the system isn’t quite ready for full-scale deployment, but it’s a good start to say the least.
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| 20 Teams Pitch At Seedcamp Estonia Posted: 20 Apr 2012 08:32 AM PDT  There was a lot of startup excitement in Tallinn, Estonia this week, where investment and mentoring program Seedcamp organised their first ever event in Estonia – a tiny country, but best known for being the cradle for the development of Skype. However, the Nordic tiger is no stranger to Seedcamp as six companies from the country – GrabCAD, Sportlyzer, Campalyst, Qminder, Transferwise and Pult – are already invested startups. In fact, Estonia is raising a few eyebrows given its tiny size, already producing a number of high quality startups at a prodigious rate. Even Estonian president Toomas Hendrik turned up to welcome attendees to “the startup country” and stayed on for the pitches! 20 startups were shortlisted for Seedcamp Tallinn event, eight of them from Estonia, others from Finland, Lativa, Lithuania, Russia, Sweden, UK and Slovenia. The list includes young entrepreneurs aimed at disrupting the online tutoring industry (Arkademy) or concert rider management (easyRider), bringing clarity to the car buying process (Carfitsme), making you the editor in chief of your own social magazine (Kula Magazine), send you “audio tweets” or ads (Notif5), rescue you from energy over-consumption (UtilityCamp) or boosting farming by mixing science and weather (WeatherMe). The list, with links is here, but for the record: • Arkademy, Tallinn, Estonia – The first live video seminar community in the world • Browserbite, Tallinn, Estonia – A service that helps to create web pages that look the same in all browsers • CGTrader, Vilnius, Lithuania – is a peer-to-peer platform where designers collaborate and trade 3D models to each other • Carfitsme, Tallinn, Estonia – Carfitsme helps to find and buy right car without spending days and weeks. • easyRider.me, Tallinn, Estonia – is an online tool helping bands and promoters get technical riders rolling right. • Kula Magazine, Moscow, Russia – an innovative multi platform magazine • Merkanty, Ljubljana, Slovenia – Our goal is to make Merkanty the best platform for all traders/sellers and advertisers • MightyFingers, Riga, Latvia – are making cross-platform game engine on HTML5 to run games on every device. • Notif5, Tallinn, Estonia – A location based audio notification platform. • Opuss – London, UK – End-to-End Social Publishing Platform. We apply Github to publishing with game mechanics. • Pinevio, Vilnius, Lithuania – is a social content discovery platform enabling our users to discover more relevant content. • Sayduck, Helsinki, Finland – solves the missing link between the online-offline retail experience using Augmented Reality. • Sketchfab, Paris, France – is the first service to publish interactive 3D content online. • TaxiPal, Tallinn, Estonia – is the only taxi app that helps you find trusted taxis in 31 countries. • Tellyo, Helsinki, Finland – An app and small device converting 2nd screens into TV remotes for better TV experience • UtilityCamp, Tartu, Estonia – We will be the RescueTime for the household energy saving. • Viewsy, London, UK – is creating Google Analytics for the real world. • Warmbreeze Studios AB, Gothenburg, Sweden – Healthy Heroes – World of Warcraft meets health and exercise! • WeatherMe, Tallinn, Estonia – boost farming production by combining farming science and weather data in a simple way • Zonear, Tampere, Finland – is a startup that focuses on adaptive HTML5 applications and web developer tools. “The biggest wow for me was to see tech folks from Estonian, Latvia and Russia having finally started expressing themselves clearly,” a Seedcamp mentor and former Head of Engineering at Skype, Ott Kaukver conculded. Although some of the ideas pitched in Tallinn sounded very similar and even too common (another CAD library, another taxi app or social content filter etc), that didn’t bother Jüri Kaljundi, member of Estonian Startup Leaders Club. “There’s a taxi app presented in every other Seedcamp or Garage48 event. Yet the problem is not yet solved, so more work has to be done!” he said. Kristjan Hiiemaa, CEO of the Seedcamp company Erply commented: “It’s a classical Seedcamp, having a bunch of guys with market ready products and super cool teams, but the other bunch of guys with just mockups. They will all learn from the mentors and are all winners already, as they are on the Seedcamp boat.” The pitches were followed by a panel discussion, where Estonian seedcampers Taavet Hinrikus (Transferwise), Kristjan Hiiemaa (Erply) shared their advice on starting internationally from day one and localizing the business. Speaking about the value coming from Seedcamp network, Hiiemaa pointed out that Erply found their investors an hour after David McLure tweeted about the company. Localization, according to Hiiemaa, is not always a good idea. Instead, a startup should focus on their core markets an postpone localization as long as possible. Erply, that is now the core retail operating system of Elizabeth Arden and other US companies, had their page in Latvian once, with “exit” button translated as “get lost”! Estonia still has plenty of challenges. One of them was hinted at by Seedcamp’s Espinal, who shared how he had to spent two days in five airports before arriving to Tallinn. Another challenge raised was how to get startuppers to live and work in Estonia, a place known for its cold weather. But Espinal remains optimistic: “It’s the more high quality startups and repeat of success that turns countries like Estonia, similar to Israel, around. I see all the right things being done in this startup country.” Seedcamp will announce 1-2 companies which will be accepted to the program in a week. Estonian startup community has their thumbs up for 7. Estonian member of the Seedcamp family.
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| Kids Send 3D GoPro Cameras Into Space, Get Back Stunning Footage Posted: 20 Apr 2012 08:00 AM PDT Whip out the out the old anagylphs, folks, because you’re going to want to watch this. Some kids at the Wonderland Elementary School sent up a weather balloon mounted with a carbon fiber frame carrying six GoPro HDHERO2 cameras. Four of the cameras were set in 3D configuration and, after editing, they were able to create the first stratospheric 3D video shoot using a balloon. You can watch it in YouTube with red/blue glasses. The resulting footage, while fun, is actually a testament to the durability and low price of modern HD cameras. I remember shooting Estes rockets with a tiny camera in the nose to get blurry photos of my friends standing on the ground. Now you’re literally taking in hours of HD video data. In space. You’ll also notice they attached a model of Space Battleship Yamato in front of the cameras. In layman’s terms, they did this because that ship is badass.
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| Nielsen Finds U.S. Hispanics Tops In Mobile, Social Activity Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:54 AM PDT  A new report from Nielsen this morning delves into the mobile and social behavior of U.S. Hispanic consumers, finding they’re highly engaged in their usage of smartphones, online video, social networking and other types of entertainment. According to the study, Hispanics outpace all over ethnic groups in mobile downloads of music and photos, and are more likely to watch video online and on the their mobile phones than others. Specifically, Nielsen says that Hispanic video viewers are 68% more likely than non-Hispanic White viewers to watch video on the Internet, and 20% more likely to watch video on their mobile phone. They’re also heavy phone users in general, sending and receiving some 941 SMS text messages per month – more than any other ethnic group. And they make 13 calls per day on their mobiles, which is 40% more than the average U.S. consumer. The group is also increasing its access to social networking services and blogs. In February, visits were up 14% to sites like Facebook and WordPress.com, for example. In February, 16.7 million unique U.S. Hispanics visitors headed over to Facebook, which is up 8% year-over-year. Visits to Blogger (+10% YOY), Twitter (+32% YOY), LinkedIn (+52% YOY), WordPress (+27% YOY), and Tumblr (+85% YOY) were up, as well. (See above chart). They often have a blog of their own, too – Hispanics are 17% more likely than the average consumer to build or update a personal blog, Nielsen found. Plus, Hispanics are 25% more likely to follow a brand, 18% more likely to follow a celebrity, 21% more likely to post links, articles, videos and website, and 7% more likely to have one or more social networking profiles. Perhaps the most interesting part to all this data, though, is the part that hints at the “why.” Hispanics are actually less likely to have Internet access at home than the average U.S. consumer (62% and 76%, respectively). Although this is increasing – home broadband use is up by 14% over the past year, which is higher than the 6% growth rate of the general market. So that can account for some of the activity. However, mobile is a key factor here. Says Nielsen, “mobile presents a significant avenue of opportunity for marketers looking to reach Hispanic consumers,” and the firm also notes that the group has “amassed significant buying power, despite perceptions to the contrary.” Marketers, though, aren’t the only ones who could successfully target this group, leveraging mobile to do so. If you’re building a mobile app or service – especially a social or entertainment-focused service – you would be lucky to have a group that’s as engaged as this one is to tap into.
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| This Speaker Dock Is Made Entirely Of Bamboo, No Electricity Required Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:52 AM PDT  I try my best to stay away from writing about speaker docks and phone cases. In my experience, they’re all the same, save for a few minor tweaks here and there. But today I stumbled upon a pretty novel little iPhone speaker dock that just so happens to be 100 percent green and uses no electricity whatsoever. You’re intrigued. I can feel it. Meet the iBamboo iPhone speaker dock. It’s made from a single piece of bamboo, and holds the iPhone in place as it plays music to amplify the sound. Granted, you won’t get any extra power in the lows or feel that bass keep bumpin’ bumpin’ (this beat goes boom, boom), but you will get some added volume and that’s all the casual listener needs anyways. Plus, the iBamboo is pretty damn beautiful, in both bamboo and black color flavors. It exists in perfect harmony with the minimalist design of Apple products, and is eco-friendly to boot. The folks over at iBamboo also make some other cool stuff, including a Bamboo iPhone 4/4S case, as well as a new line of iBamboo speaker docks made of recycled plastic. That line is called the iBamboo Speaker Urban, and while it looks exactly the same in terms of design, it comes in translucent and black plastic rather than Bamboo. Stock is currently quite low on the iBamboo, so you may have to wait, but the site lists a notification alert system so if you’re really excited about this, I’d recommend signing up. If you’re still not sold on this things legitimacy, check out this video of the iBamboo speaker doing its thang: [via DVICE]
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| Video Social Network Runfaces Takes On Sean Parker’s Airtime Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:33 AM PDT  In 2009 a Russian teenager named Andrey Ternovskiy created random video chat website ChatRoulette, which at its peak in March 2010 attracted 1.8 million unique monthly visitors, but suffered from offensive content. The phenomenon inspired Shawn FanningandSean Parkerto create Airtime, which raised $8.3 million in funding and is rumored to go live soon. While Airtime engineers are still hacking, 33-year-old Alex Krizhevich and 24-year-old Anton Melnyk from Ukraine built and already launched a video-based social discovery platform called Runfaces in October 2011. Runfaces went viral, reaching 280,000 unique visitors in its first month, mainly in the US. Introducing video communication into the existing social graph has been done before: SocialEyes was launched as a Facebook app last year, but has pivoted to become a video calling app for Android. Runfaces, which like Airtime was inspired by ChatRoulette, is about social discovery based on interests. The tag line of Runfaces is ‘real communication in the virtual world’. The users sign up with their own Facebook accounts for authentication reasons (email signup is also possible) and select their interests to start meeting new people in a video format. Social discovery works through recommendations based on specified interests, direct search, interest groups and random video chat. There is a section called Pulse, which shows a stream of publicly shared video messages as well as YouTube and Vimeo videos. Users interact via video messages and a live video chat. To deal with adult content the founders rely on Facebook login and moderation. Importing social graph from Facebook helps acquire new users quickly, and sharing recorded video messages via Facebook adds to the viral factor (Twitter sharing is coming soon). To bootstrap the startup, Krizhevich and Melnyk used proceeds from their respective businesses: Krizhevich runs a creative agency, and has a background in advertising, whilst Melnyk co-founded 12 successful Internet projects. Six people in total are involved in the project. Runfaces attracted 10,000 new registrations within days after it launched. It went viral, especially in the US states of Kansas and Missouri, where users spent over 1 million minutes video-chatting, recorded over 7 million video messages and subsequently crashed the website. With these stats the team successfully applied to Eastlabs, the Ukranian accelerator backed by local billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who rebuilt the site on the new technology platform and has just closed a seed funding of $70 000 from EastOne Group. Coincidentally, John Fanning, the uncle of Airtime co-founder and CEO Shawn Fanning, is a mentor at Eastlabs, yet the Runfaces team has not had interactions with him during the accelerator program. Runfaces members seem to be using the network for meeting new people, sharing music videos, Chinese food cooking tutorials, college advertisement and inevitably dating. According to Krizhevich, artist groups are quite active on the network. Some users have over 1000 friends. To understand the extent of video used in online dating, I connected with David Evans, who runs the Online Dating Insider blog. Evans does not believe that people are ready to use video in online dating. Besides, it is still difficult to monitor for the prevention of abuse, and otherwise it mostly attract kids with no money. According to Evans, video chats have been used by video-based introduction sites such as WooMe (acquired by Zoosk). Then there is SpeedDate. As far as adult content goes, video introductions have been around for years. Yet the social video broadcasting appears to be a hot spot. In addition to Google hangouts there is a highly anticipated launch of OnTheAir, which is slowly opening up its private beta. A video messaging application called Tout, favored by celebrities, has been visited by 12 million people in the first year since it launched. The Runfaces team plans to monetize the service by selling virtual goods, using a freemium model where the invisible status and personalized video player branding will be offered to the premium accounts. It also plans to introduce advertisement and sponsorship. Before that, the total investment of $140K, including own capital, will not get the company too far, even if it relies heavily on viral marketing. Runfaces is currently fundraising. This post is written by our regular contributor Natasha Starkell, the CEO of GoalEurope, the outsourcing advisory firm and a publication about outsourcing, innovation and startups in Central and Eastern Europe. Twitter @NatashaStarkell. Gplus.to/natashastarkell.
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| Brand-To-Fan Platform Crowdtap Expands To Facebook & Mobile, Sees Revenue Soar Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:26 AM PDT  Crowdtap, a web-based network that allows brands to connect with their most engaged fans and customers through social media, has just expanded to two more platforms: Facebook and mobile. The mobile application comes in the form of an iPhone app which allows fans to participate in the brand’s “challenges” (games and contests) in order to earn rewards. Meanwhile, the new Facebook tab sets up a special “VIP” section right on the brand’s own Facebook page, to allow for interactions with its top fans. Since launching at SXSW in 2011, Crowdtap has raised $7 million in funding from the Foundry Group, and now counts among its customers over 60 well-known U.S. brands, including American Express, Old Navy, Sony Pictures, Dreamworks, Verizon Wireless, Microsoft, Pinkberry, and more. In Q1 of this year, Crowdtap reports it has surpassed its entire revenue from all of 2011. Although the company declined to give hard numbers here, we do know that it had already surpassed $1 million in revenue as of July 2011. They tell us that’s it’s safe to assume that this number was “well surpassed” through the end of the year. And now they’ve made all that and more in just one quarter. For those unfamiliar, Crowdtap allows a brand to reach out to its influencers from communities they’ve built up on Facebook, Twitter or in CRM databases, as well as reach out to Crowdtap’s member base of 250,000 consumers. In exchange for interactions with the brand, which may entail things like surveys, polls, online discussions or social sharing, the consumers are rewarded through exclusive access to new products and content, or whatever else it is the brand in question wants to offer – freebies, perhaps, or gift cards. In addition, Crowdtap also supports fans’ favorite charities by allowing them to choose charitable donations instead of cash rewards, and it even goes so far as to require that a set number of a fan’s points are given to a charity. There’s a “gamified” element to all this, too, as Crowdtap’s members earn points, badges and rewards for their participation. For the brands and marketers, Crowdtap provides them with an online dashboard that gives them a real-time look into their social communities, helping them see how consumers are interacting and what insights they may have. One of the first companies to roll out the Crowdtap Facebook tab is Woolite, and several clients are planning to roll out on the mobile app, but Crowdtap is unable to disclose the details at this time, due the the sensitive nature of its discussions with the brands.
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| Galaxy S III Reportedly Revealed In Vietnamese Hands-On Video Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:17 AM PDT  With only a few weeks left to go until Samsung’s big London reveal, the leaks are just flying out of the woodwork now. If that recent Brazilian leak didn’t quite fill you with much confidence, this one just may — the team at Tinhte.vn recently posted an extensive hands-on with what claims to be the Samsung i9300, perhaps better known as the Galaxy S III. I know, I know, we’ve seen scores of leaks up to this point, but it’s worth pointing out that Tinhte has an impressive track record. They went hands-on with the new iPad before just about anyone else, not to mention scoring early images of the iPhone 4 and Samsung’s 10-inch Galaxy Tab over the years. Anyway. The i9300 — which BGR claims is the correct model number next big Galaxy phone — features a 4.6-inch 720p AMOLED display on the front, and an 8-megapixel camera pod around back. If the body looks a little strange (not to mention different from that other recent leak), The Verge reports that the device in question is wrapped in a dummy shell so as to keep the device’s true visage from showing through. Inside that ersatz shell is a 1.4GHz quad-core chipset, and thanks to a quick look at the device’s System Information screen, it indeed appears to one of Samsung’s Exynos 4×12 series systems-on-a-chip. The device also sports 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, support for NFC, and the usual microSD card slot. The specs that Team Tinhte spell out are a bit more realistic rumor mill has circulated recently, and lends a bit of credence to the notion that the GSIII is more of an incremental update than a full-blown revolution. At this point, there’s no way to be sure that this device is indeed the Galaxy S III (or whatever Samsung ends up calling it), but the fact that Tinhte has since yanked their post entirely fills me with a glimmer of hope. Fortunately, a copy of the video has made its way to YouTube with English subtitles, which I’ve included below.
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| AT&T’s AVP Of Technical Research Explains The New Watson Speech API Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:41 AM PDT  It was only yesterday that AT&T announced its Watson Speech API, meant to let developers of any kind provide products with real-time translation baked right in. I got the chance to speak with Mazin Gilbert, AT&T’s AVP of Technical Research, about what this could mean over the next few months and years, and it sounds like useful, seamless translation might finally be in the pipeline. We’ve seen real-time translation efforts again and again, but no one has ever really nailed it. By opening up an API to developers, AT&T has the numbers on its side, and it’s only a matter of time until someone breaks down the language barrier entirely. Besides English, six languages are supported including Italian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. All the languages are in different stages of development. The hope is that, eventually, I’ll be able to make a call to China and speak with someone as comfortably and clearly as I would if I was calling someone in the U.S.
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| Seeing Is Believing: This Nokia Ad Was Filmed Entirely With The 808 PureView Supercamera Phone Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:27 AM PDT As this new ad clearly demonstrates the 41MP Nokia 808 Pureview is an amazing piece of mobile photography technology. It was filmed with just the 808 Pureview and it looks great. Nokia has a winner in the 808 PureView. Too bad it’s a Symbian device. 41MP in a handset? Yessir. As Devin previously explained, it should not be dismissed as a gimmick. This is a real advancement in sensor and processing technology. The only real downside are that it’s built around Nokia’s Symbian Belle OS and it’s not coming to the States anytime soon. Nokia reportedly worked on the sensor technology for 5 years. Sure, the 808 is a tad bulky by today’s smartphone standard but the stellar camera should by enough compensation for its target niche.
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| HTC Is Done With QWERTY Keyboard Phones Posted: 20 Apr 2012 05:48 AM PDT  Touchscreens killed the keypad star. HTC is reportedly done with physical keypads and will instead focus on better on-screen keypad technology. The word comes from HTC creative director Claude Zellweger speaking at a Seattle press event. “As a company the QWERTY keyboard we’re moving away from in general.” This likely doesn’t mean HTC won’t release another QWERTY phone in the near future but rather the company is shifting development focus away from physical keys. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The entire smartphone market started moving away physical keys as a response to the iPhone’s rise to the top. Even RIM followed this trend with its line of Storm smartphones. For better or worse, ditching physical buttons in favor for on-screen keyboards allow for thinner more stylish phones. MobileBurn quotes Zellweger saying “putting too much effort into that [QWERTY phones] would take away from our devices.” This shows that HTC understands that the company needs a unified brand rather than a gaggle of phones. In previous years HTC seemingly released a new Android handset every three weeks. During Android’s roaring early days, this strategy helped grow the platform by enticing new buyers with fresh phones built on the latest technology. But now, as Samsung and Motorola have slowed their roll, HTC needs to do the same and it seems the QWERTY phones are getting the ax.
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| Applications About To Close For Wayra London Incubator Posted: 20 Apr 2012 03:04 AM PDT  Back in March giant telco Telefonica opened the latest addition to its growing global network of startup incubators dubbed “Wayra Academy”. Wayra is the latest incubator/accelerator in London, joining Springboard, Seedcamp and Innovation Warehouse. Now this is fair warning that the deadline for Wayra applications is about to close. So you better hurry. If you’re wondering what the deal is with this latest in a long line of new European incubators, then here’s how it’s set up: Telefonica takes around a 10% stake in a startup for up to €50,000 in funding, pocket change to a company their size. Wayra will put about 20 startups into its London building for six months, after which it will help them pitch for follow-on funding from other sources of venture capital. If after 6 months things are not working out I was told that Wayra will sell back their share of the company to the startup for €1. But check Ts & Cs I hazard. In exchange for all this Telefonica gets the right of first refusal on the companies. Clearly that provides some potential security in that you’ve basically got a potential buyer before you even start, but it’s not going to be very competitive if your startup gets a better offer from some other suitor. But if you’re a startup that needs to have a telecom partner at the off, this is a dream come true. Ultimately it plans to fund around 350 startups. I think it would be good to get these all places singing and humming in London, which, at least according to the Startup Genome project recently, now ranks behind Silicon Valley and New York in terms of startup activity.
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| VCs Invested $5.8B In 758 Deals In Q1 2012, Total Dollars And Deals Both Down From Last Quarter Posted: 19 Apr 2012 09:00 PM PDT  Venture capitalists invested $5.8 billion in 758 deals in the first quarter of 2012, according to a MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). The report shows that after a strong fourth quarter 2011, VC investment activity for the quarter fell 19 percent in terms of dollars and 15 percent in the number of deals compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 when $7.1 billion was invested in 889 deals. While the Life Sciences (biotechnology and medical device industries combined) and Clean Technology sectors saw decreases in both dollars and number of deals in the first quarter, there were double-digit percentage increases in dollars invested in the Consumer Products and Services, and Telecommunications industries. Additionally, investments into companies in the Later stage of development experienced an increase, rising 11 percent and accounting for 40 percent of total dollars invested during the first quarter of 2012. The Software industry received the highest level of funding for all industries with $1.6 billion invested during the first quarter of 2012, but still saw a 18 percent decrease in dollars, compared to $2 billion invested in the fourth quarter. The Software industry also had the most deals completed in Q1 with 231 rounds, a 12 percent decrease from the 262 rounds in the fourth quarter of 2011. Dow Jones VentureSource reports in a separate study that U.S.-based companies raised $6.3 billion through 717 venture capital deals during the first quarter of 2012, an 18% decline in capital and 9% decline in deals from the same period last year. And the median amount invested in a financing round fell 13% to $4 million in the first quarter of 2012. Internet-specific companies received more than one billion dollars for the eighth consecutive quarter with $1.4 billion going into 188 deals, which is 3 percent lower in dollars and 23 percent lower in deals than the fourth quarter of 2011 when $1.4 billion went into 244 deals. Eleven of the 17 MoneyTree sectors experienced decreases in dollars invested in the first quarter, including Semiconductors (43 percent decrease), IT Services (26 percent decrease), and Industrial/Energy (14 percent decrease). The Consumer Products & Services sector experienced a 78 percent increase during the quarter due to the largest deal of the quarter ($238 million) occurring in that sector. Even enterprise investments, which saw two years of growth, slowed, says Dow Jones. In the first quarter, 100 deals raised $947 million, a 29% decline in deals and 10% decline in capital raised from the same period a year ago. Deals By Stage: Seed stage investments fell 9 percent in dollars and 41 percent in deals with $141 million invested into 53 deals in the first quarter. Early stage investments fell 31 percent in dollars and 24 percent in deals with $1.6 billion going into 290 deals. Seed/Early stage deals accounted for 45 percent of total deal volume in Q1, compared to 53 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. The average Seed deal in the first quarter was $2.7 million, up from $1.7 million in the fourth quarter. The average Early stage deal was $5.6 million in Q1, down from $6.1 million in the prior quarter. First-time financing (companies receiving venture capital for the first time) dollars decreased 22 percent to $783 million in Q1, the third lowest level in survey history. And, the number of deals fell 28 percent to 195 deals in the first quarter, the lowest level since the third quarter of 2009. First-time financings accounted for 14 percent of all dollars and 26 percent of all deals in the first quarter, compared to 14 percent of all dollars and 30 percent of all deals in the fourth quarter of 2011. Companies in the Software, Media & Entertainment, and IT services industries received the most first-time rounds in the first quarter. The average first-time deal in the first quarter was $4.0 million, up slightly from $3.7 million in the prior quarter. Seed/Early stage companies received the bulk of first-time investments, garnering 81 percent of the deals. Dow Jones reported that in the U.S. specifically, seed- and first-rounds accounted for 44% of deals and 21% of capital invested during the first quarter, the same proportion of deals as the corresponding period last year but an increase from 16% of capital raised in that quarter. Expansion stage dollars decreased 32 percent in the first quarter, according to the MoneyTree report, with $1.7 billion going into 207 deals. Overall, Expansion stage deals accounted for 27 percent of venture deals in the first quarter, a slight uptick from 26 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. The average Expansion stage deal was $8.3 million, down from $10.9 million in the prior quarter. Investments in later stage deals increased 11 percent in dollars and 13 percent in deals to $2.3 billion going into 208 rounds in the first quarter. Later stage deals accounted for 27 percent of total deal volume in Q1, compared to 21 percent in Q4 when $2.1 billion went into 184 deals. The average Later stage deal in the first quarter was $11.0 million, which decreased slightly from $11.2 million in the prior quarter. The slump isn’t particularly surprising-other reports have shown a similar trend for the first quarter. But global managing partner of PWC’s VC practice, Tracy Lefteroff says that the improvement in the public markets during the first quarter could lead to an increase in VC dollars spent in the second quarter. "The overall decline in investment in the first quarter underlies several shifts occurring in the venture space,” said Mark Heesen, president of the NVCA. “The industry continues to contract and consolidate which is beginning to manifest itself in fewer dollars being invested in fewer deals. Yet, we feel that the overall impact will be positive for the asset class as only the best entrepreneurs and technologies will be funded at rational valuations.” He adds that with the exit market and M&A improving, VCs could be pouring more money into first time deals in the coming months.
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| Posted: 19 Apr 2012 09:00 PM PDT  Editor's Note: Christine Tsai is a Partner at 500 Startups. Learn more about her at http://500.co and follow her on Twitter at @christine_tsai. Are you an entrepreneur looking to build something truly awesome that will positively impact millions of people's lives? (And by the way, make a LOT of money?) If so, then I have a suggestion… Stop building yet another daily deal site or mindless social game or yellow filter so-lo-mo photo-sharing service. Instead, build something awesome for moms, dads, families, or kids. Believe it or not, there are a lot of them so make their lives easier and happier. Because, the best part is that they'll probably pay you for it. Need some numbers to prove that this space is worth going after? A few nuggets of data*:
It's clear that families are where the kwan is. As a parent, I'm not surprised by these numbers. I've certainly spent a considerable amount of money since I became a mom over 9 months ago – diapers, clothes, parent club membership, child care, diapers, baby wipes, baby food, strollers, car seats, toys, diapers, doctor visits, and more. My partner-in-crime, Dave, has 2 kids (ages 5 and 7) and has spent thousands of dollars on children's story books, language tutors, mini vans, kids clothing, soccer classes, ballet classes, basketball classes, gymnastics classes, private school tuition, and more. What many single male 23 year-old entrepreneurs don't realize is that family tech is a BIG FREAKING BUSINESS. As in, TRILLIONS of dollars. People will never stop having kids, and people will never stop spending money on them to make sure they're safe, healthy, and educated. If anything, these numbers are growing year after year. But there's more to it than the total addressable market. There are huge pain points experienced by parents. It's hard to find good child care options in one place. It's hard figure out things to do with your kids on the weekends or after school. It's hard to find iPad apps for your kids that you are confident are helping them learn, vs just being entertained. It's hard to figure out whether to do cord blood banking. The list goes on and on. 500 Startups has invested in over 25 family tech startups to date and expect that we'll invest in another 20+ every year (and in multiple countries). We are so passionate about family tech as a key investment theme that we're holding an entire conference about it today (MamaBear). Many of the problems that families face can be solved with great technology, design, and distribution. Going after families is (or should be) the new 'sexy'. Whether you're building learning apps for everyone in the family (like MindSnacks), a mom-targeted commerce site (like ecomom), subscription services for kids (like Kiwi Crate), or mobile apps to monitor infants (like Evoz), you're making a huge difference in the lives of families. * Numbers cited from BabyCenter, BCC Research, IBISWorld, The Globe And Mail. * Don't have a ticket to the MamaBear conference? We're also live streaming at http://livestream.com/500startups starting at 9:00AM Pacific on Friday April 20.
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| Rewinery Now Shipping To San Francisco, Potentially My Liver Posted: 19 Apr 2012 07:43 PM PDT  We first heard about Rewinery through a stray tweet from Instagram co-founder (and fellow Brazilian) Mike Krieger. Because it was late at the office, and we were working on culling TechCrunch Disrupt finalists, we thought that having three bottles of wine delivered to TechCrunch headquarters sounded like just about the best thing in the world …. Except we (okay, who the fuck am I kidding here with this “we” shit? I…) didn’t quite fully understand the magnitude of disruption in the “getting alcohol delivered to you quickly” space. Rewinery was sold out! Okay I guess that’s a good sign for them and probably a good thing for me too because I’ve been making Disrupt decisions sober (we’re still looking at applications, so apply here if you get inspired by this, BTW). And because Rewinery cares about customer service they me sent the wine anyways, this morning. And after trying a sample glass or four with my teammates we’ve decided that this is probably the best startup in the whole world, barring that one that lets you connect with friends and family and share photos and stuff. And also that other one with the birds. That one is pretty good. Because who the heck doesn't like Founded by Brazilians Joana Kollier and Paulo Lerner, Rewinery has been around for two months and is obviously seeing a lot of demand I’m guessing, as they ran out of wine late last night (they usually go until 2am). But seriously though, this mother helps people get quality drunk, quickly, what’d you expect? Almost too good to be true if you think about it. Editor’s note (wow, I can really write that shit legitimately now): This is an homage to another post that was seriously the most beautiful writing we had on the site today. I can’t even begin to do it justice.
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| Latest Rumors Peg An LTE iPhone For An October Release, LiquidMetal To Be Used For The Casing Posted: 19 Apr 2012 06:50 PM PDT  After a period of unnerving quietness, the Apple rumor mill is back up and running at full capacity producing two somewhat credible rumors over the last 24 hours. The next iPhone will not be announced until October if the latest rumors are believed. A separate rumor is just so wild that it might be true: The iPhone 5, or whatever it’s to be called, will be made of LiquidMetal, which will allow for a unique unibody construction. But again, these are just unfounded rumors. Please proceed with caution. Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray, stated that chipmaker Qualcomm is gearing up to supply the LTE chipset. However, per Qualcomm’s CEO yesterday, unpredicted demand has caused supply issues. Munster believes this sets Apple up to launch the iPhone in October, conveniently a year after the iPhone 4S’ announcement. Korea IT News recently reported that the iPhone 5 will be housed in a LiquidMetal casing. This material, an alloy of titanium, nickel, copper, zirconum and other metals, is said to have a feeling of glass despite having the physical strength of metal. The material is perfect for use in smartphones. It’s physically tough and naturally resistant to wear, scratches and dents. However, unlike traditional metal fabrication, LiquidMetal objects can be formed with a sort of injection molding similar to plastic. This allows for a wider range of applications and physical forms — perhaps a stronger unibody casing. Phone manufacturers have recently turned to different material to set their phones appart. Motorola used a bit of carbon fiber on the back of the RAZR phones and Samsung is said be employing ceramic for the upcoming Galaxy S III. But the benefits of LuquidMetal would set the iPhone 5 apart and Apple has the exclusive rights to the material for use in consumer electronics. It’s safe to say that the next iPhone will be something different even if it doesn’t employ LiquidMetal. The current iPhone design has been used for nearly two years now and has had its share of problems. Even glass touted as tough as gorillas is a poor material for a phone. So sometime in the coming future, perhaps this summer or maybe in October, Apple will announce the sixth generation iPhone.
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| Travel Data Startup Duetto Raises $2.1M From Trinity, Marc Benioff, Many More Posted: 19 Apr 2012 06:33 PM PDT  Duetto Research, a startup bringing a “big data” approach to the travel industry, has just raised $2.1 million in seed funding. The company hasn’t launched yet, but co-founder and CEO Patrick Bosworth says the goal is to build applications around customer demand data from large travel companies. It’s starting out by serving small- and medium-sized lodging businesses (who could, for example, use the data to help with pricing and distribution strategies), and Bosworth plans to go live for Duetto’s first customers this summer. Eventually, he says he wants to help “companies in all travel verticals respond to changing market conditions and market demand.” Bosworth previously worked as director of yielding and business strategy at Wynn Las Vegas, where his co-founder Marco Benvenuti was executive director of enterprise strategy. Duetto’s third co-founder, Craig Weissman, was CTO at Salesforce.com until June of last year. There’s a big list of impressive investors. The round was led by Dan Scholnick from Trinity Ventures, with participation from Battery Ventures and Benchmark Capital. Individual investors include Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, his co-founder Parker Harris, Expedia co-founder Rich Barton, entrepreneur and author Steve Blank, and many others. Here’s the full list: Travel Investors Mark Lomanno: former CEO of Smith Travel Research (STR) Technology Investors Marc Benioff: Chairman/CEO at Salesforce.com
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