The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Kayak Teams Up With Skyhook To Bring Reliable Location Services To Its Kindle Fire App
- Failure Is Not An Option: Why Kickstarter Hides Failed Projects
- Crowdfunder Closes $400K Seed Round, Launches Public Beta
- 10 Million Translations Later, SayHi Translate Rolls Out Major Update
- Huddle Lands $24M Series C To Go Big On Enterprise Cloud Storage And Collaboration
- Predictive Startup Recorded Future Raises $12M From Balderton And Google Ventures
- Kayak’s First-Ever CFO Leaves Ahead Of IPO, Links Up With Next-Gen Flight Search Startup, Superfly
- Social Ad Network 140 Proof Launches Partner Platform, Signs Up Jumptap
- Box Aims For Bigger Deployments With New Features Like Enterprise-Wide Search
- Autodesk Launches The Pen-And-Ink SketchBook Ink App for iPad
- Big Apple Leads Millennial Q1 Device Ranks By Wide Margin: 28% For Brand, 15% For iPhone
- Make It Social: VEVO Sees 600% Increase In Facebook Traffic After Redesign
- Yahoo Debuts Axis, Their New (And Impressive) Desktop And Mobile Search Experience
- And The Winner Of The Third Annual TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Is UberConference
- Kony Solutions Nabs $15M From Insight Ventures For Its Enterprise App Development Platform
- How to Get Involved With The White House Digital Road Map
- Meg Whitman Details Layoffs To HP Employees In Internal Video, Thinks HP Is “Rebuilding Credibility”
- Autonomy, Not So Autonomous Anymore: HP CSO Bill Veghte Steps In, Founder Mike Lynch Steps Down
- Pandora’s Quarterly Results: $80.8M In Revenue, 52M Active Users & 3.09B Listening Hours
- Tape.tv Raises $6.2 Million To Begin An International Roll-Out
| Kayak Teams Up With Skyhook To Bring Reliable Location Services To Its Kindle Fire App Posted: 24 May 2012 09:13 AM PDT  Amazon’s Kindle Fire is currently the most popular Android-powered tablet, but it doesn’t feature a GPS chip. Given how important location-based services have become, that’s a bit of a drawback for many developers and quite a few apps that want to access location features on Amazon’s tablet actually crash. To avoid these issues, Kayak teamed up with Skyhook to provide location services for its updated Android app. Kayak, of course, relies heavily on location services to show its users information like nearby hotels and airport information. Skyhook’s Android SDK allows developers to get location information across virtually all Android versions and forks like the Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s NOOK. The service, which provided virtually all of the location features for iOS before Apple switched to its own solution in 2010, uses WiFi triangulation when it can’t use a GPS chip or cell tower triangulation to determine a device’s location. On Android, it is worth noting, Skyhook is also enabled in a number of other popular apps, including Tweetcaster, HopStop, deCarta and OpenTable. WiFi triangulation, of course, is never quite as accurate as GPS (except for when you are indoors), but using a service like Skyhook greatly improves location accuracy in urban areas and speeds up GPS satellite acquisition times.
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| Failure Is Not An Option: Why Kickstarter Hides Failed Projects Posted: 24 May 2012 09:04 AM PDT  Dan Misener, in a fit of inspired data mining, scraped half of Kickstarter to find failed projects. He could not, it seems, find a single one. Why? Because Kickstarter hides them behind a non-searchable wall. They exist, sure, but you won’t find them with Google and they never, ever show them in their “Discover” browsing system. And good for them. In a general sense, Kickstarter isn’t a marketplace. It’s not like Etsy or Ebay or Amazon where the slow-sellers sit next to the hot items. It is, instead, more of a competition. It’s a competition for eyeballs, for cash, and for media attention. It is more a dog show than flea market, and you don’t keep the ugly dogs on stage after the first round of judging. What Misener discovered, in short, was that Kickstarter surfaces only successful or nearly successful projects and hides the failed ones. For example, Instaprint failed and if you search for it none of the original Kickstarter content will come up. It’s been norobot’ed. GTar, on the other hand, is alive and well. As is Shadowrun: In short, in the 26,000 or so searchable Kickstarter entries there is not a single dud. To his credit, Misener does not call this an outrage. However, as a source for potential crowdsourcing wisdom Kickstarter’s failures are as important as its successes. Although the variables are few, the configurations are many and there are reasons that project X didn’t succeed while project Y – a mere permutation of project X – pulled it off. He writes: Spend more than a few minutes poking around, and you'll realize that Kickstarter's front page and Discover pages are clearly built to highlight projects that are currently seeking funding, or have already been successfully funded. From a business perspective, this makes total sense. Kickstarter's business model is built on taking a 5% cut of successful campaigns. Showing failures isn't in their interest. It is well within Kickstarter’s rights to yank junk projects off the stage. It keeps the site fresh and vibrant and a graveyard of garbage iPod Nano straps is no one’s idea of a good time. That said, to push failed projects down the memory hole with such vigor is a bit harsh. Those who do not learn from their mistakes are, after all, doomed to make another damn iPad stand.
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| Crowdfunder Closes $400K Seed Round, Launches Public Beta Posted: 24 May 2012 09:03 AM PDT  Crowdfunder, the Los Angeles-based startup creating an online platform for the “crowdfunding” of startups and small businesses, has launched the first public beta version of its site this week. The launch comes on the heels of Crowdfunder closing on $400,000 in seed funding from a group of angel investors earlier this month, CEO Chance Barnett tells me. The key difference between Crowdfunder and existing sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo is that Crowdfunder wants to facilitate the kind of equity-based funding where investors get an actual stake in the company, rather than provide donations. For many years, only accredited investors have been allowed perform equity investing in private companies — and to receive accreditation, individuals must meet certain criteria such as having a net worth in excess of $1 million. The JOBS Act signed into law last month contains passages that remove that restriction, allowing virtually anyone to invest in private companies. But: The crowdfunding portion of the JOBS Act has not taken effect yet — the Securities and Exchange Commission is still reviewing it — so the old standards requiring equity investors to be accredited still stand today. That means that Crowdfunder.com is not yet able to do what it aims to do. Contests, Not Quite CrowdfundingDespite this, Crowdfunder has had nearly 2,000 companies apply to raise funds with the site and over $17 million pledged to invest by crowdfunders signed up on the platform. So it decided to hold a “beta launch” that is actually a series of contests to be held in cities across the US, in which local startups and small businesses will compete for funding from judging panels of high-profile accredited investors. The first of these events is being held in Los Angeles. Dubbed “Crowdstart LA,” the contest is now open to submissions from startups, who will compete to win a $25,000 prize that will be awarded in July. Similar events in Las Vegas, Silicon Valley, and New York City are on the horizon, Barnett says. Waiting Out The SEC Ruling PeriodOonce the crowdfunding aspect of the JOBS Act gets the green light from the SEC, Crowdfunder plans to activate the ability for anyone to invest through its platform. In the meantime, Crowdfunder is optimistic about the process. Barnett wrote in an email:
Not everyone is jazzed about the JOBS Act and the advent of equity-based crowdfunding. Some worry that this could harm regular investors and have negative effects on companies and the larger startup ecosystem. We’re still the early days of crowdfunding in general, but it’s clear that there is definitely a sense of anticipation — both positive and negative — about the practice. Here is an interview with Crowdfunder CEO Chance Barnett on TechCrunch TV from earlier this spring, discussing the JOBS Act and where Crowdfunder fits in:
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| 10 Million Translations Later, SayHi Translate Rolls Out Major Update Posted: 24 May 2012 08:45 AM PDT  One of the hot companies at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York this week was the real-time people-powered translation service Babelverse. Quite often, though, Google Translate-style machine translation is good enough and there is clearly a huge market for all kinds of translation services. SayHi Translate, a $0.99 iOS app that focuses on machine translation, just announced that it has now translated over 10 million phrases since its launch just four weeks ago. To celebrate this milestone, SayHi is releasing version 2.0 of its app today, which features a redesigned and easier to use interface, as well as new controls over how its spoken translations sound. SayHi Translate speaks 33 languages and dialects, including English, Spanish, French, German, Mandarin and Russian. The app can translate between all of these. One of the nicest features of the services is that it uses a Nuance-powered voice recognition engine for 24 of the languages it supports. Thanks to this, you and the person you are talking to don’t have to write text into the app, which makes for a significantly more natural interaction if you are trying to get directions in a foreign city, for example. With today’s update, the app now features an improved user interface and it also gives its users more control over how spoken translations sound. You can now also choose between male and female voices and adjust the speed of the spoken translations. SayHi Translate’s CEO Lee Bossio tells me that the service uses a blend of “translation magic” on the backend, meaning that it using its own engine as well as a number of third-party services. In my tests, the translations were surprisingly fast and accurate. Like most of these services, it works better with short sentences, but it also did a pretty good job with longer and more complex sentences as well. Before launching SayHi Translate, the company focused on providing a similar service to enterprise customers in corporations, hospitals and government organizations. Since March, however, the company has focused on its consumer app and given that it’s been used over 10 million times now, this strategy is clearly paying off.
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| Huddle Lands $24M Series C To Go Big On Enterprise Cloud Storage And Collaboration Posted: 24 May 2012 08:35 AM PDT  Huddle, the six-year-old company that makes cloud collaboration software for the enterprise, has closed on $24 million in new funding, bringing its total equity funding to $40 million. The new round, which serves as Huddle’s Series C, was led by Jafco Ventures, with DAG Ventures participating along with previous backers Matrix Partners and Eden Ventures. WebEx founder Subrah Iyar also pitched in. Huddle’s last funding round, a $10.2 million Series B, was closed two years ago in May 2010. Huddle is co-headquartered in London and San Francisco and opened an office in New York City this month that will serve as a sales hub. According to the company, its revenues have tripled in size each year since its 2007 launch and had four quarters of record growth in 2011. The new money will be put toward growth: Huddle now has 100 full-time employees split between the UK and the US, and expects to triple its staff over the next twelve months, a spokesperson says. 80 percent of the Fortune 500 uses Huddle, the company says, and its customer list includes firms such as Procter and Gamble, Saatchi & Saatchi, NASA, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Huddle does not disclose its revenue, but co-founder Andy McLoughlin told TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden in February that the company was profitable. Huddle’s most direct competitor in size and function is probably Box, the Silicon Valley-based company that also makes enterprise cloud storage and collaboration software.
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| Predictive Startup Recorded Future Raises $12M From Balderton And Google Ventures Posted: 24 May 2012 08:14 AM PDT  There’s a lot of talk these days about what you can do with “big data.” Here’s one of the more eye-catching uses: A startup called Recorded Future pulls data from around the Web to give customers a better handle on — that’s right — the future. The company just announced that it has raised $12 million in Series C funding from Balderton and Google Ventures. Balderton partner and former Business Objects CEO Bernard Liautaud is joining the board. Recorded Future says it’s continually scanning “tens of thousands of high-quality, online news publications, blogs, public niche sources, trade publications, government web sites, financial databases and more.” Then it analyzes that content and visualizes the data in a way that should help you answer questions about what’s ahead. For example, the demo video below includes mentions queries like: Where are world leaders traveling next month? What’s going down in Mexico City over the next 60 days? Which source best predicts correct Apple product releases? The Recorded Future website suggests that the company is targeting three main use cases — financial services, competitive intelligence, and defense and intelligence. The company has now raised a total of $20 million, with past investors including In-Q-Tel (the venture arm of the CIA), IA Ventures, Atlas Venture, and Google Ventures. Co-founder and CEO Christopher Ahlberg says Recorded Future is coming out of “semi-stealth mode” today — a fuzzy term, since the company has already attracted some customers (including the Defense Department) and headlines, but one that suggests we’ll be hearing more from the company soon.
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| Kayak’s First-Ever CFO Leaves Ahead Of IPO, Links Up With Next-Gen Flight Search Startup, Superfly Posted: 24 May 2012 07:45 AM PDT  While it’s far from being the only offender, the online travel industry (particularly travel search engines) is in dire need of better segmentation and targeting — for offers, deals, and all their related services. For example: Currently the top 10 percent of travelers are responsible for 40 percent of revenue and 50 percent of the profit in the industry, yet, generally speaking, they still see the same promotions and deals as everyone else. In fact, Orbitz, Kayak, American, United, and a handful of other top travel sites still get most of their flight inventory info from ITA, which they sort and serve based on price, i.e. the cheapest ticket. Yes, cheap tickets are appealing, but if we’re looking for that which characterizes the next generation of travel sites — like he proliferation of user data profiles, personalization and granularity — then the experience demand more than basic price comparison. (Plus, let’s be honest, the cheapest ticket doesn’t always offer the best value, anyway.) Today, Israeli startup Superfly, which offers a secure tool that combines worldwide flight information with personal travel preferences to help people organize and maximize the value of their travel rewards among other things, is quietly launching a shot across the bow of the industry’s giants — in this case, the uber popular metasearch engine, Kayak. That’s because the startup is now able to call on the significant operational and financial experience of Willard (Bill) Smith, who was, until recently, Kayak’s CFO. Smith joined Kayak in May of last year (as the company’s first-ever CFO) to help the startup prepare for and actually move forward with its perpetually-delayed IPO. What do we mean by “perpetually delayed”? Well, Kayak first filed its IPO docs in November 2010, and it was reported last week that the company may, just may, embark on its road show next week. Why has it taken a year-and-a-half? The answer varies depending on whom you ask, but it would be safe to point a finger at both the long-running unsteadiness of IPO market conditions and the company’s erratic earnings. As to Smith and Superfly, the CFO officially stepped down from Kayak in March, and although he declines to reveal the reasons behind his departure, he has definitely been clear about his growing interest in Superfly. Regardless of how one paints the CFO’s departure from the most popular (but erratically performing) metasearch engine for travel pre-IPO, along with his ensuing interest in advising a next-gen travel search engine that could spell trouble for that very incumbent (although a number of pieces would need to fall into place before one could consider Superfly a legitimate threat) — but in the end it would just be speculation and innuendo. However, it is fair to say that the above, alongside Smith’s genuine interest, equates to some great early validation for Superfly (especially as it’s operating in a crowded space where startups have to work even harder to stand out), and at the very least implies that there could be significant opportunity for travel sites that can improve upon the Kayak model. As to Superfly, Smith said of its value proposition:
Superfly first debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in 2010 and later launched its flight search beta. Today, the startup is taking another step forward, with the official removal of its “beta” tag, finally making its flight search tools available to non-users. Travel search right now is in the process of being commoditized, the former Kayak CFO says, which unfortunately results in users being treated the same way — as a commodity. However, a new generation of startups is emerging that will leverage Big Data to collect and create segmented profile data on its users to better target ads and offers to elite travelers. For frequent fliers, earning miles and an elite status is the result of hard work, so Superfly aims to provide value by making it easy for them to organize their rewards and find flights that consider their frequent flier status. As the space stands today, 95 percent of travel search lacks segmentation and Superfly wants to help change that. Of course, without creating value for airlines, this line of thinking means nothing. That’s why the startup is looking to tailor its approach in such a way as to transform the entire dynamic between channel and supplier from one of cutthroat competition (by showing results based on fares or distance) to one of value for both the consumer and supplier, Smith says. With Superfly’s new tools, suppliers can now leverage its aggregated traveler data to provide valuable offers and promotions to the most influential and active members of its user base, and, in turn consumers will be able to receive these offers by joining Superfly and beginning their travel search. From there, Superfly’s suppliers can begin targeting their elite customers as they search, providing offers, deals, and more in realtime — at times when they are most useful. Superfly also recently integrated with Facebook’s Open Graph to allow its users to share their achievements to their Facebook pages. While social functionality is essential, the real winner both Smith and Superfly CEO Jonathan Meir said, will go beyond intent to build meaningful customer profiles based on social activity, travel interests, and more. For more on Superfly, check ‘em out at home here.
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| Social Ad Network 140 Proof Launches Partner Platform, Signs Up Jumptap Posted: 24 May 2012 07:21 AM PDT  Ad startup 140 Proof is opening up a partner platform for companies that want to take advantage of its social ad targeting. The company currently delivers ads to 50 social apps, including Echofon, TweetCaster, and Plume. Underlying the network is something that 140 Proof calls “Interest Graph Targeting,” where users are assigned different “personas” based on what they say and who they follow. Those personas allow advertisers to serve ads to people with specific interests, and the new platform makes this interest targeting available to other companies. Among other things, co-founder and CTO John Manoogian III pitches this as a way for brand advertisers to extend their reach beyond traditional advertising like TV. For example, if an advertiser wanted to reach people interested Glee, they could run an ad during the show, but they could also target social network users who have commented about Glee or follow Glee-related accounts (as illustrated in the image above). Interest-based targeting will also be key if mobile ads are going to make money, he says. Several mobile and social ad companies have already signed up, including Jumptap, Celtra, and OneLouder. It seems like 140 Proof might face one of the common challenges of platform companies sometimes — balancing the needs of the platform with the other parts of the business. In this case, an ad network might be a customer of the platform but also a competitor with the 140 Proof network. However Manoogian says the market dwarfs any individual company, so it will be “a long time before we run into any channel conflicts.” And while advertising is an obvious place to start, Manoogian and his co-founder and CEO Jon Elvekrog see broader possibilities for the platform. For example, they say that an e-commerce site could use 140 Proof targeting to deliver improved recommendations.
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| Box Aims For Bigger Deployments With New Features Like Enterprise-Wide Search Posted: 24 May 2012 06:10 AM PDT  Box is releasing a number of new features today, with the broad theme of addressing “the needs of our largest enterprise customers in deploying this kind of technology,” according to CEO Aaron Levie. Those features include the ability to search files across an entire company, a new dashboard offering more granular controls for company administrators, mobile security options like passcode locks, support for multiple email domains, activity notification archiving, and a new enterprise licensing agreement. Altogether, Levie says this means big companies can manage organization-wide Box deployments “at a scale that was never before possible.” This should also help some of those larger customers address issues like regulatory compliance. For example, Box’s search was previously limited to individual accounts. The new enterprise-wide search addresses e-discovery requirements, so if a legal issue arises, businesses can find content anywhere within the company. The new ELA is crucial too, Levie says, because it means customers should have more predictable pricing as the exact size of their teams change, rather than paying purely on a seat-by-seat basis as in the past. Levie adds that this is part of a larger trend, both within Box and across cloud industry. A few years ago, CIOs of large companies only wanted to use a service like Box in isolated pockets of the organization. “Today what we’re seeing is, companies are doing the inverse,” Levie says. “They actually want their core systems to be cloud. … They would rather have the core systems be from vendors that can focus all of their energy on solving all of their core problems instantly.” Hence the new features making that process easier. Levie also points to the successful IPOs of companies like Jive Software and Splunk as evidence of how the enterprise landscape is changing. That brings up another question: Given its growth and success, is there a Box IPO on the horizon? It may may be in the long-term playbook, but Levie says that for now, he’s enjoying the benefits of keeping the company private, so, “We’re definitely not going to do anything this year.
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| Autodesk Launches The Pen-And-Ink SketchBook Ink App for iPad Posted: 24 May 2012 06:03 AM PDT  Autodesk is expanding its growing portfolio of iPad apps today with SketchBook Ink. The pen-and-ink app is built on a new graphical engine that’s independent of resolution, allowing the created artwork to be exported in resolutions exceeding 100 megapixels. This, Autodesk hopes, will reinvigorate graphic artists and even doodlers about iPad content creation since the vector-based artwork can scale to massive print sizes. SketchBook Ink joins Autodesk’s relatively large assortment of iPad drawing apps. Although powered by a new engine, the app feels very similar to the other titles including SketchBook Pro. The interface is a bit scaled, almost reorganized to make for a more intuitive user experience. SketchBook Ink launches with seven preset ink styles and two types of erasers.
Autodesk built the app for sharing. Artwork can be exported to the iPad’s photo library, iTunes, Dropbox, and can be shared quickly via email. The slick interface makes scaling upon exporting rather easy with options to keep it small for web use or export for print with a resolution over 100 megapixels. "With more than 10 million downloads to date, we're proud that the SketchBook family is changing how, where, and with what tools people unlock their creativity. People who never considered using a digital app for their artwork before, are now turning to SketchBook to produce incredible illustrations," said Samir Hanna, vice president, Consumer Products, Autodesk in a statement released to TechCrunch. Starting today, the Autodesk SketchBook Ink App is available for $4.99 from the App Store. But if you act fast, you can nab it for $1.99 during a special introductory promotion.
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| Big Apple Leads Millennial Q1 Device Ranks By Wide Margin: 28% For Brand, 15% For iPhone Posted: 24 May 2012 02:23 AM PDT  Mobile advertising company Millennial Media, one of the biggest in the U.S., has released its quarterly ad impression report, and the results show that Apple continues to remain the single-biggest brand, and most popular phone maker, on the Millennial ad network — with the rest of the list largely dominated by Android. Apple has a clear lead in the field of device makers based on brand: the popularity of Apple’s iPhone handsets, iPad tablets and iPod music players gave the company a share of 28.32 percent of all devices on the network, with its closest competitor, Samsung, picking up a share of 18.25 percent of the overall market impressions. Millennial also notes that non-phone devices are continuing to see a growing impact on the overall mix. RIM slipped down to number-five in the list of top manufacturers, and with 10.16 percent of all devices, and Nokia, once the leading vendor of mobile handsets, is now down to 10th position, with a 0.91 percent share of mobile devices. When considering individual handset models, you can really see the strength of Apple’s strong portfolio essentially built around one device. Apple only had the iPhone (unspecified which precise model; perhaps all three) in the top-20, but usage of iPhones was enough to give it 15.1 percent of the whole market. The next-closest competitor was BlackBerry Curve with a 4.44 percent share of the market. In contrast to Apple, other handset makers are still relying on several handset models, which all do moderately well, so that in aggregate they are gaining better market share. For example, RIM has five handsets in the top-20, the biggest number. Together that accounted for only 12 percent of impressions. Samsung had four handsets, which together made eight percent of impressions. HTC also had four models in top-20, with Motorola listing three. Although the usage of tablets is really taking off — Millennial notes that is up by 33 percent over last year, with iPad very much in the lead — smartphones are still accounting for the vast majority of traffic. Collectively, they account for 73 percent of all ad impression traffic, versus 62 percent the year before. Traffic from tablets and other non-smartphone devices went up as well, t0 20 percent from 15 percent, while feature phones are really in decline. Lower end devices not account for only seven percent of ad impression traffic, compared to 23 percent a year ago. When it comes to platforms, although Apple leads in terms of single brand, the sheer aggregation of Android device makers continues to push Google’s OS into the lead. Android now has 49 percent of all impressions, with iOS at 33 percent. Millennial notes that Android overtook iOS as the dominant platform in 2011. BlackBerry is at 14 percent to round out the top three. In terms of popular apps, Millennial says that games were the most popular category, and it grew by 10 percent over last year. Music and entertainment took the number-two position. The full rankings for popular app categories are below:
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| Make It Social: VEVO Sees 600% Increase In Facebook Traffic After Redesign Posted: 23 May 2012 09:01 PM PDT  In March, VEVO launched a bold new redesign that provided TV-like viewing, with instantaneous and continuous playback. But the biggest addition to the platform, other than a beautiful new full-screen player, was a new social sharing feature that takes advantage of Facebook Open Graph. Not surprisingly, VEVO seen a dramatic increase in the number of videos that are watched and shared on the social network since then. VEVO has seen a 600 percent increase in Facebook-published or -watched videos when compared to February, to 4.5 million. It’s also signed up half a million new users via Facebook, which represents a 142 percent increase over the previous month. And the total number of impressions on Facebook grew to 171 million, which is a 181 percent change from February. A caveat: VEVO isn’t the only video provider to see a jump in sharing and usage immediately after integrating with Facebook Open Graph. Video applications like Viddy and Socialcam had seen huge increases in the amount of viewership and registrations after adding seamless sharing. But Facebook giveth and Facebook taketh away — and VEVO can’t count on that tremendous growth to continue indefinitely. That said, it’s not just viewership from Facebook that is increasing. VEVO is also showing an uptick in engagement from users, who are watching more videos longer. Viewers watched an average of 4.3 videos in March, compared to 3.8 videos viewed in February. And they spent 15.2 minutes on the site, compared to 13.1 minutes during the prior month. Facebook also isn’t the only place where viewers are tuning in to watch music videos on VEVO. The video service is also seeing huge amounts of viewership on mobile devices. In the first three months of the year, VEVO saw 254 million worldwide streams on mobile devices and connected TV apps, which is up 32 percent from the previous quarter. It also saw active users for iPhone grow 28 percent and iPad grow 22 percent during the time period.
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| Yahoo Debuts Axis, Their New (And Impressive) Desktop And Mobile Search Experience Posted: 23 May 2012 06:38 PM PDT  Late last year, Yahoo filed for a trademark on the phrase "Yahoo Axis." The filing raised more questions than answers at the time, but after six months Yahoo has finally spilled the proverbial beans — Axis is both a new search-oriented add-on for your web browser, and a new browser app for iOS. Before I talk about what it's like to actually use Axis, let's first discuss why the hell they're doing this in the first place. TechCrunch spoke to Yahoo's Director of Product Management Ethan Batraski, and he told us his his job has been to figure out what search looks like over the next few years. Yahoo Axis was one of his answers. “No one’s innovated on ‘How do I get rid of the search results page altogether’”, Batraski said. “That is what we want to do.” That’s exactly what they did. Once you download, install, and log into Axis with your Yahoo credentials (you do have Yahoo credentials, don't you?), a small back bar will begin to live in the bottom left corner of your preferred web browser. Right now Axis plugs into Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer, though Batraski didn't completely rule out the possibility of Yahoo eventually releasing their own browser should there be enough interest. That little black pill has a search bar nestled in it, and mousing over it causes it stretch across the bottom of your browser window. Actually clicking in the search box and plugging in a search query makes the bar expand to fill roughly the bottom third of your browser window, displaying easily-scannable thumbnails of Yahoo's search results. Yahoo's idea here is to give their (or perhaps more accurately, Microsoft’s) search engine its own flexible space to live in outside of the traditional browser paradigm. With Axis installed, users who need to find things online don't need to tear themselves away from the page they're currently looking at by navigating to a different page or opening a new tab. There’s no question that it takes a little getting used to — as a longtime Chrome user, it’s become second nature to open a new tab a bang a search query into the address bar — but it’s been very thoughtfully executed. When Axis works (which is most of the time) it works very well. Occasionally, the black search box will fail to close properly, leaving behind a partial remnant of the last search result thumbnail in its place. Perhaps one of the most annoying things about Axis (at least on a Mac) is scrolling horizontally through the thumbnails of search results. Users can click and drag through them with a mouse or hit buttons mounted to the left or right of the results panel, but scrolling side to side with a trackpad can be tricky. It causes the results to move over three results at a time, which sometimes means you miss seeing some results.It's a relatively minor point of contention (and one that's probably easy to fix), but still, there you have it. But Axis on the desktop is only one part of the equation — its other half lives on your iPhone (or your iPad). Yahoo has also whipped together a standalone browser app for iOS that seeks to bring that same revamped search experience to the mobile space. This is where Yahoo actually manages to make me swoon a little bit. The iOS app is surprisingly good — it's more than handsome enough, it runs very smoothly (thanks mostly to its WebKit underpinnings), and your bookmarks sync between devices quickly once you make sure you’re logged in. I’ll also admit right here that I’m a bit of a sucker for their font choices, but let’s not dwell on that. If anything, the big thumbnails for search results play out even better on a small screen. There’s no angling to make sure your finger touches the link just right. That said, I’m not sure it’ll be replacing the stock Browser app for me — what's great about Axis for the desktop is that it fits into whatever browser you've decided you like enough to use. On iOS though, there’s no way to set a default browser so it takes a conscientious effort to use Axis there. For now, the Axis browser app remains an iOS exclusive. It’s not entirely impossible that we’ll see a version make its way onto Android someday, though I imagine Google may not take too kindly to a another search company trying to set foot in their territory. Batraski referred to Axis as an "experiment," but to my utter pleasure, it's a pretty damned good one. Is it enough to make a dyed-in-the-wool Googler convert? Probably not, but with nearly 700 million users still using Yahoo, I reckon a solid chunk will find something to enjoy here.
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| And The Winner Of The Third Annual TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Is UberConference Posted: 23 May 2012 04:17 PM PDT  It’s been a whirlwind couple of days here in New York, as our expert judges watched earnest startups pitch their hearts out onstage at the third annual TechCrunch Disrupt NY. Thirty startups presented in the first two days, to be whittled down to six after much judge deliberation and founder bated breath: gTar, OpenGarden, UberConference, Ark, Babelverse and Sunglass. Those six had to come back today to present again, this time in front of super-hardcore finals judges Fred Wilson, Roelof Botha, Marissa Mayer, Mike Arrington, Chris Dixon, Eric Eldon and Chi-Hua Chien, who dug deep into everything from customer acquisition strategy and revenue models to actual acquisition strategy in the cases of both UberConference and Ark. Then the judges retired for an hour and a half of deliberation, and as always, had a hard time deciding on a winner because each of the final six had a compelling draw. We finally got down to two, gTar and UberConference, and, after more deliberation, decided that this year’s winner of TechCrunch Disrupt NYC is UberConference, a service that hopes to change the way you and I make conference calls by setting up the call around a visual interface. gTar, a guitar app that attached to an actual hardware guitar to help you learn how to play, put on an impressive showing and is the official runner-up. But UberConference, founded by Google Voice creator Craig Walker, eliminates unwieldly PINs and the confusion surrounding not knowing who is who on a call by providing a slickly designed dashboard for conference calling. If you don’t think this is a problem, just ask our new COO Ned Desmond how he felt when we confused him for someone else on a conference call. Thank you to partners Sequoia Captial, AT&T, Credit Suisse, Getaround, Google, Hatch, Outbid, Quotidian Ventures, About.me, AllStateBanners.com, CityGrid, Domain.com, .ME, IBM, Launchpad Ignition, Mobli, popchips, Smith & Keats Music, OpenTok from TokBox, twake, Udemy, Whit.li, Caraquri, Freshdesk, Connect by Getty Images, Mashery, ooVoo, Sedan Magic, Skookum Digital Works, SponsorHub, Thefuture.fm, Tremendous Theming by Themendous, TouchTunes, Worry Free Labs and Rent The Runway, Gilt and Warby Parker for providing wardrobe. And if you want to learn how to pitch, check out UberConference’s winning presentation:
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| Kony Solutions Nabs $15M From Insight Ventures For Its Enterprise App Development Platform Posted: 23 May 2012 03:03 PM PDT  Kony Solutions, the unfortunately named makers of a write once, run everywhere mobile app development platform today announced that it has closed a $15 million series C round of financing. The funding was led by New York City-based venture capital firm, Insight Venture Partners, a 17-year-old firm that has invested in companies like Tumblr, Buddy Media, Wix, Chegg, and Twitter — to name a few. Insight also led Kony’s $19.1 million series A financing, which it closed in January of last year. With its latest infusion of capital, which brings total funding to nearly $39 million, the startup is looking fund the deployment of new sales and marketing programs, regional expansion, and to ramp up hiring. For those unfamiliar, Kony is on a mission to develop technologies and apps that both facilitate and accelerate customer engagement on any mobile operating system, device or channel. Through its flagship product, KonyOne, the startup offers a development environment and mobile middleware that allows big businesses to build and launch both enterprise and consumer apps. As a result, Kony now offers support for nearly every technology and deployment option out there, from native apps on all native OSes, HTML5-capable browsers, single page apps, wrappers, hybrids, and more — even support for BYOD deployments. The agility and scalability of its platform have attracted more than 70 Fortune 500 companies, banks, airlines, as well as automotive and insurance companies. Kony CEO Raj Koneru says that the startup will use its newest round of funding to continue managing and expanding on its recent growth, which (as of the end of its FY2012) had seen more than 200 percent growth in bookings and has added more than 30 new global customers, including Aetna, CIBC, Independence Blue Cross, Scottrade and Sun Life Financial. What’s more, the company recently launched a suite of off-the-shelf, vertical-specific apps for banking, healthcare, retail, and travel, while earning the business of more than 30 new customers, including Aetna, CIRC, BlueCrossBlueShield, Scottrade, and Sun Life Financial. With patents-pending for its flagship product, KonyOne, support of more than a billion user sessions annually, and its being named a “Visionary” startup by Gartner, Kony is really starting to find the kind of traction it will need to compete in a crowded space. For more, check out Kony at home here.
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| How to Get Involved With The White House Digital Road Map Posted: 23 May 2012 03:00 PM PDT  President Obama’s technology advisors are looking for some “kick ass” fellows to work on the White House’s new digital road map for open government. Announced on stage at Disrupt 2012, CTO Todd Park and CIO Steven VanRoekel detailed five new projects, each which will need a team of open government geeks to help move forward. You can view the first part of the application process here. So, what are they looking for? Park told the audience that he’s looking for the first 5 people one would want to begin a startup with: a mix of people with technical expertise, an accomplished history, and a passion for disruption. Technical skills for some team members are definitely important (UI/UX experience, coding, etc). But, a history of causing some type of disruption is definitely key. If you’ve managed to make your industry more transparent, participatory, or collaborative, definitely indicate that on the second round application (which will be later emailed to applicants). Last, a passion for using technology for social change, especially open data, should probably make its way into the application. Park and VanRoekel are also interested in working with entrepreneurs outside of the fellows program. For instance, in June, Park will help with a health care “datapalooza“, which will feature companies that leverage the new government data. Entrepreneurs can also follow Park and VanRoekel on Twitter for upcoming news, and @reply them with great ideas. Good luck to all of the applicants and entrepreneurs, and keep TechCrunch updated if you develop any great products related to open data.
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| Meg Whitman Details Layoffs To HP Employees In Internal Video, Thinks HP Is “Rebuilding Credibility” Posted: 23 May 2012 02:20 PM PDT  Confirming rumors from last week, HP just publicly announced a layoff plan that will result in a reduction of 8% of its workforce. Shortly after releasing the memo to Wall Street, HP CEO Meg Whitman sent a company-wide video message explaining the future of Bill Hewlett and David Packard’s company. She acknowledges throughout that HP is in trouble, stating in the beginning, “HP's performance is still not where it needs to be” and “We have a lot of work ahead of us to get HP back on track.” She also explains, a bit comically and perhaps erroneously, that “[HP] is currently rebuilding credibility one quarter at time, and to do that, we need to consistently deliver on what we say.” Whitman also reaffirmed HP’s commitment to infrastructure, PCs and printing, servers, storage and networking. “This is a differentiating strength for HP and one we can be proud of,” she said in the video. However, the axe is about to fall throughout HP. Before Whitman attempts to justify the cuts, she explains that HP’s employee count has grown at a pace unsustainable by its low revenue as of late. “We're struggling under our own weight,” said Whitman in today’s internal video memo. “And we've got to restore a healthy balance in order to return HP to its position as a growing… thriving… innovating… industry leader. That's what this is all about. And the workforce reduction is only one piece of a comprehensive effort. We see a lot of opportunity to remove complexity, streamline and reduce costs in a number of areas across HP.” Like previous rumors speculated, HP plans on reinvesting the savings into the company. “We'll be investing to drive leadership in the three strategic pillars – cloud, security and information optimization. And in each of our businesses, we'll make investments to stay ahead of customer expectations and market trends.” This is a fresh move for HP who under previous leadership simply used the savings of a smaller company to help the ledger. In the consumer-focused PC and Printing Group, “we'll be focused on design, engineering, quality, and generating demand and desire with our customers,” she said. In Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) “we'll invest to drive R&D and innovation in our core businesses of servers, storage and networking. In Software, we'll be investing to speed development across Security, Information and Management Infrastructure for both on-premise IT and in the cloud – with a key focus on software-as-a-service offerings. This will include the extension of Vertica and Autonomy across our entire portfolio. And in Services, we'll improve processes and build-out capabilities in cloud, security and information. We'll also be strengthening our industry practices, as well as our service quality and innovation.” Whitman also detailed that HP is looking to better train their employees while providing a “career development and better tools and support.” Like most leaders, Whitman ends the video with a reminder to her underlings that “In times of change, it's easy to lose focus, waiting to see what happens next. We can't let that happen. This a great organization, full of incredible people who are resilient, committed and who care about our customers and our company. I'm asking all of you to please keep driving forward. Close every deal. Leave nothing on the table. We need that now more than ever.” Below is a transcript of the video. We are currently working on obtaining the video itself. Update: We have the video. Uploading now. Hi. Today HP announced second quarter results, and once again, we delivered on what we said we would do. Our publicly-stated guidance for non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was 88 to 91 cents. And we delivered 98 cents, beating our outlook by 7 cents a share on revenues of $30.7 billion. I thank all of you for your hard work and dedication. This is a journey. We're rebuilding credibility one quarter at time, and to do that, we need to consistently deliver on what we say. You are at the heart of our results. Without your efforts, HP cannot thrive. But HP's performance is still not where it needs to be. Our business is still declining. Year-over-year, non-GAAP EPS was down 21 percent and revenues were down 3 percent. We have a lot of work ahead of us to get HP back on track and that begins with executing against the strategy we've talked about in recent months. Our foundation is infrastructure, PCs and printing, servers, storage and networking. This is a differentiating strength for HP and one we can be proud of. HP Software extends and strengthens that foundation, solving customer challenges like managing, securing and automating the information flow across the data center. Services makes it all work together for the customer, ensuring their technology is meeting their needs. And finally, we combine our infrastructure, software and services into comprehensive solutions that deliver enormous customer value. Moving forward we're aligning our powerful collection of assets to capture leadership in three strategic areas: Cloud, security, and information optimization. But to do this we must invest and we cannot afford to wait. As we discussed in Q1, our costs are expanding while our revenues decline, and this has been happening for too long. The strategic realignment we announced last quarter was a good first step in addressing this problem by beginning the process of removing complexity, simplifying our operations, and reducing costs. And today we're taking the next step in this journey with the announcement of a multi-year restructuring that will touch every part of HP and create a more streamlined company. We're taking a pre-tax charge of approximately $1.7 billion to be included in our FY12 GAAP results, as well as a further multi-year pre-tax charge of $1.8 billion. By the end of 2014, we expect to reduce the workforce by 27,000 positions through a combination of layoffs and early retirement. And we expect to generate run-rate cost savings of approximately $3 to 3.5 billion. These are difficult actions. Workforce reductions aren't easy and we don't take them lightly. They adversely impact people's lives and are tough on the company, our culture and you. We're trying our best to mitigate the impact as much as we can. We've limited hiring to try and reduce the number of people affected. For those positions we have open, we're giving top consideration to internal candidates. We're offering an upgraded early retirement package in the US, and expanding our career transition and planning services to better support employees. I know HP has been through a lot in recent years and this is another dose of change. But in this case, it's absolutely essential for the long-term health of our company. Let me share a little perspective. At the end of 2009, we reported a workforce of about 304,000. At the end of 2010, we had almost 325,000 employees and at the end 2011, that number had ballooned to nearly 350,000. Over that same period, we saw year-over-year revenue growth of 10 percent in 2010, of 1 percent in 2011… and so far in 2012, revenues have been declining. We're struggling under our own weight. And we've got to restore a healthy balance in order to return HP to its position as a growing… thriving… innovating… industry leader. That's what this is all about. And the workforce reduction is only one piece of a comprehensive effort. We see a lot of opportunity to remove complexity, streamline and reduce costs in a number of areas across HP. I know that many of you remember the cost reduction of years past, like data center consolidation and centralizing functions such as HR, Legal, Finance and IT. What we're doing now is different. We're going after the big cost buckets and fundamental business process reengineering. This includes optimizing the supply chain, reducing the number of SKUs and platforms, continuing to hone our real estate strategy, simplifying our go-to-market, improving business processes, and implementing consistent pricing and promotions to drive end-user demand profitably. It's harder work with greater potential payoff. Another difference from years past is what we plan to do with the savings. The majority of savings this time around will be invested in the business. We'll be investing to drive leadership in the three strategic pillars – cloud, security and information optimization. And in each of our businesses, we'll make investments to stay ahead of customer expectations and market trends. In our PC and Printing businesses, we'll be focused on design, engineering, quality, and generating demand and desire with our customers. In ESSN, we'll invest to drive R&D and innovation in our core businesses of servers, storage and networking. Together they create a converged infrastructure that is the foundation for top customer initiatives such as cloud, big data analytics and social media. In Software, we'll be investing to speed development across Security, Information and Management Infrastructure for both on-premise IT and in the cloud – with a key focus on software-as-a-service offerings. This will include the extension of Vertica and Autonomy across our entire portfolio. And in Services, we'll improve processes and build-out capabilities in cloud, security and information. We'll also be strengthening our industry practices, as well as our service quality and innovation. Additionally, we'll invest in our people – in better training, better career development and better tools and support. In times of change, it's easy to lose focus, waiting to see what happens next. We can't let that happen. This a great organization, full of incredible people who are resilient, committed and who care about our customers and our company. I'm asking all of you to please keep driving forward. Close every deal. Leave nothing on the table. We need that now more than ever. I'm confident in the decisions we've made and the direction we're going. Together, we will define the future of HP and of our industry. We'll be holding our next all employee broadcast on June 18th and I look forward to speaking with you then and answering your questions. Thank you.
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| Autonomy, Not So Autonomous Anymore: HP CSO Bill Veghte Steps In, Founder Mike Lynch Steps Down Posted: 23 May 2012 02:18 PM PDT  Within HP’s quarterly results today, a bit of a development for Autonomy, the company’s $10.2 billion enterprise software purchase from last year that was profitable when HP bought it but in the last quarter saw “significant” declines in its core licensing revenue: its founder and head Mike Lynch is stepping down, and he is getting replaced by a HP man: chief strategy officer and EVP of enterprise software Bill Veghte. HP says in its Q2 earnings release that this is being done to help improve Autonomy’s performance. In an internal memo to employees, which TechCrunch has obtained, CEO Meg Whitman says that the move is being made to as a mark of how HP is “investing to speed development across Security, Information and Management Infrastructure for both on-premise IT and in the cloud – with a key focus on software-as-a-service offerings.” The same strategy will be applied to the company’s Vertica business, Whitman noted in the memo. HP’s Q2 earnings saw revenues down by three percent to $30.7 billion. Within that, the company saw a mixed (but overall declining performance) in its different divisions:
Autonomy’s performance probably represents something of a disappointment — and perhaps surprise to HP, since the unit seemed to be doing much better when the acquisition was announced in October. At the time of the deal, Apotheker noted:
Mike Lynch, the founder and current head, will be stepping down after a transition period, HP says, and it doesn’t look like it’s giving up on Autonomy any time soon: “the market and competitive positioning for Autonomy remain strong, particularly in cloud offerings,” the company writes in its statement. Autonomy, founded in the UK, offers a software infrastructure solution in which enterprises can get different applications to “communicate” with each other. It has 20,000 customers worldwide, and there are over 400 OEM companies that offer licenses to more than 500 products. Applications include those that handle information access technology, pan-enterprise search, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery and archiving, records management, business process management, web content management, customer interaction solutions, and video and audio analysis. Following are some other founder departures from other companies HP has acquired — as you can see it looks like all of the others may have been working through their earn-outs (typically two years; although Chris Lynch stayed for just over a year after Vertica was bought, to join Atlas Ventures). Between Autonomy getting bought in October and today, it’s been about eight months. HP acquired Opsware for $1.6 billion in 2007. President & CEO Ben Horowitz stayed a year before leaving in 2009 to launch Andreesen Horowitz. HP acquired Vertica for $350 million in February 2011. CEO Chris Lynch left in March 2012 to join Atlas Ventures, a VC firm. HP acquired Stratavia in August 2010. Terms not disclosed. CEO Thor Culverhouse left in February 2012 to found new company. HP acquired ArcSight for $1.5 billion in September 2010. CEO Tom Reilly left HP in May 2012. HP acquired Fortify in August 2010. Terms not disclosed. CEO John M. Jack left in January 2012.
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| Pandora’s Quarterly Results: $80.8M In Revenue, 52M Active Users & 3.09B Listening Hours Posted: 23 May 2012 02:15 PM PDT  Internet music service Pandora just announced its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2013. The company had a total revenue of $80.8 million, a 58% increase year-over-year. Out of these $80.8 million, $70.6 million came from advertising revenue and $10.2 million from subscription revenue. Advertising revenue increased 62% year-over-year and subscription revenue increased 38%. Despite its increased revenue, Pandora still reported a net loss per share of $0.12 and Non-GAAP net loss of $0.09 per share. Pandora currently has $80.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. That’s down $10 million from the last quarter. The company’s cash used for its operating activities increased significantly from $2.8 million in the year-ago quarter to $10.6 million. Looking ahead, Pandora is raising its expectations for the full fiscal year. The company now expects to make between $420-427 million in revenue for its fiscal 2013, resulting in a net loss per-share of between $0.07 and $0.11. More Listeners, More AdvertisersOverall, the company’s active users reached a record 51.9 million this quarter, up 53% year-over-year. Pandora now has a 71.7% share of the top U.S. Internet radio services and commands almost 6% of the total U.S. radio listening market. According to Pandora, this means that advertisers are also getting even more interested in its services, as “They are moving quickly to speak with their target customers across the Pandora platform, with the majority of the top 50 digital advertisers in the U.S. already having bought multiplatform advertising on Pandora. “
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| Tape.tv Raises $6.2 Million To Begin An International Roll-Out Posted: 23 May 2012 01:57 PM PDT  tape.tv has been around for a while – since July 2008 to be exact. It operates like a mix between an online version of MTV and Pandora. Just like the latter service, on Tape.tv users can skip, like or dislike the videos as they play, so the service starts to tailor itself to their tastes. I came across it in various visits to Berlin over the last couple of years but have been frustrated that this great service has only been aimed at the German market. However, I’m excited that it’s about to scale into new countries. The company has now raised €5 million ($6.2 million) in a Series B funding round. Participants include Atlantic Capital Partners GmbH , Dario Suter, Christoph Daniel and Marc Schmidhelny (DCM), prolific Berlin Angel investor Christophe Maire, alongside Investitionsbank Berlin and VC Kreativwirtschaft Berlin. The cash will be used to scale the business, appear on other platforms like smart TVs and launches into France and the UK in early autumn. The relaunch will also see the creation of an electronic program guide (EPG) for their own live shows and events. Its tape.tv’s catalogue of 45,000 videos has attracted around 3.5 million users in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, its main markets since it launched in July 2008. The company managed to navigate the tricky music licensing laws in Germany, which has seen YouTube hobbled in some areas. Founded by Conrad Fritzsch (CEO) and Stephanie Renner, Tape.tv plans to have an editorial team in each region it launches in, programming its sub channels, like Indie and Hip-Hop. Fritzsch says the company is now aiming at the convergence of Internet and TV towards SmartTV and hopes to extend to mobile as well. “The future of tape.tv will also be more social, based on user behaviour” he says. The company has 65 employees, many of them selling ads around the videos, and also has a real TV show on on the ZDFkultur channel in Germany. But it’s a lucrative business. It’s claiming to be running on €20 million in annual revenues. In Germany it has plenty of strategic partners, including ZDF.kultur, bild.de und spiegel.de and apps with Facebook, Spotify and Last.fm.
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