The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- TubeMogul Pitches Brand Safety With PageSafe, A Tool To See Where Ads Really Appear
- SlickFlick App Lets You Tell Stories With Your Photos, Signs Getty Deal
- PowerInbox Now Makes LinkedIn Emails Interactive, Adds Email Widgets & More
- That’s Amore: Has Apple Bought Italian Music Editing Startup Redmatica?
- Here’s Kleiner Partner Mary Meeker’s Latest Data Dump: Mind The Mobile Monetization Gap
- HTC Evo 4G LTE Review: Head-To-Head With The iPhone 4S And The Galaxy Nexus
- BOKU Scales Up, Will Power Carrier Billing For In-App Payments In The T-Mobile Mall
- BoxPAY Debuts Its Carrier Billing Platform For Smart TVs
- Songkick’s Tourbox Makes It Easier For Musicians To Trumpet Their Concerts Across The Web
- Google Looks To One-Up Facebook With Google+ Local: A More Social Google Places, With A Twist Of Zagat
- Play Safe For Android Locks Down Your Phone So Kids Can (Safely) Play
- Simple.TV Targets Cord Cutters With A Kickstarter Campaign
- Research In Motion Opens 10% Down A Day After Issuing A “Business Update”
- Nokia 808 Pureview Goes Live On Amazon’s UK Site, Available June 21
- A New Roambi: Turn Your Biz Reports Into Sexy iPad Zines, Then Sell ‘Em In The App Store
- Flipboard Planning To Release Android Beta For Everyone Who Doesn’t Have A Galaxy S III
- Inspired By Your Home: The Click Wall Switch Watch
- Amazon-Owned LOVEFiLM, The Netflix Of Europe, Signs Streaming Deal With NBCUniversal
- The Nest Thermostat Is Now Available At The Apple Store
- Southeast Meetup Reminders: Savannah, Raleigh, And Charlotte Are Set, Atlanta Not Iffy [UPDATE!]
| TubeMogul Pitches Brand Safety With PageSafe, A Tool To See Where Ads Really Appear Posted: 30 May 2012 09:10 AM PDT  Media agencies want to ensure that their ads are only seen in the best light… But a lot of times, the networks they use to distribute those ads don’t do a good job of distinguishing between good content or bad content, or where an ad appears. That’s why video ad startup TubeMogul has opened up a new page that will let anyone — whether it be a brand, an agency, a publisher, or merely a curious observer — scan a URL and see how it ranks in terms of brand safety. That page, based on TubeMogul’s PageSafe technology, is a powerful tool to show off what viewers really see and what brand associations they’re getting when ads run against certain content. Brand safety isn’t a new issue in online advertising. Several ad networks have sought to tackle the issue over the years — and yet, ads still run up against objectionable content and auto-load in spots where viewers never see them. Not too long ago, the TubeMogul folks ran a site called FakePreRoll.com, which sought to highlight examples of video ads running below the fold and poor contextual targeting. After receiving a bunch of angry emails from embarrassed brands and agencies — not to mention a few cease and desist letters — they decided to shut the site down. (Not surprisingly, an anonymously run site has popped up in its place at videoadstandards.wordpress.com to carry on where FakePreRoll.com dropped off. Anyway, the problem of brand safety isn’t limited to rogue sites or bad actors: Take this page on CNN.com, for instance. Few brands would object to having their ads shown against a global new site like that, but they might find the science of the G spot a little racier than they’d like for their target audience. (The TubeMogul PageSafe gives it an R rating, by the way.) The public-facing part of PageSafe is a fun tool, but what’s really interesting is what’s behind the scenes. That’s because advertisers who use TubeMogul’s ad buying platform can use PageSafe in real-time to assess the safety of pages before campaigns run on them. It’s hoping that will be a big differentiator to help bring on more advertisers. Another differentiator, along the same lines, is publisher transparency: While other ad networks will give advertisers the ability to choose buckets of inventory based on certain categories, TubeMogul clients can pick exactly which publishers they want to run a campaign on and see how well ads across all those sites performed, allowing them to optimize their campaigns in real-time. One final differentiator that no one else has? This video:
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| SlickFlick App Lets You Tell Stories With Your Photos, Signs Getty Deal Posted: 30 May 2012 08:58 AM PDT  It’s been fascinating to watch the proliferation of photo apps before and since the rise of Instagram and its sale to Facebook. EyeEm has a beautiful app which makes tagging images to locations ridiculously simple (plus all that filter goodness). LoopCam makes hilarious photo loops you want to share with your friends. Now SlickFlick has appeared with an iOS app to help you create fun stories around your pictures. [download from iTunes here] The boot-strapped startup was founded by Maria Constantinescu who has been relentless in pushing her vision for the last two years and today she lands a big-brother partner in the shape of the Getty image library. Basically you create visual stories on the fly your iPhone and then share or embed them. Using it is a bit like creating a film storyboard. A good example is their “Zuck & Priscilla” story, made in 2 minutes, which recently went viral. Now, the vast Getty Images will make its entire library available to users of the SlickFlick app. Users create stories with their own photos or add in images form the library, then share them on the site or on social media. SlickFlick is based in London but developed out of Romania, and Constantinescu has been a champion of the region’s development talent. This is an app worth checking out an playing with. My feeling is that the next stage would be to upload sound, perhaps by integrating SoundCloud.
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| PowerInbox Now Makes LinkedIn Emails Interactive, Adds Email Widgets & More Posted: 30 May 2012 08:53 AM PDT  PowerInbox, the email platform that’s been on a tear lately in terms of its releases, is rolling out yet another update today bringing a number of new features, including the addition of the most requested in-email app, LinkedIn. The platform already supports email “apps” like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Groupon, essentially making emails from those companies more interactive – you can like, reply, comment, tweet, circle and more directly from your email. With the new LinkedIn app, you can now read more about the person requesting the invite, browse their network, and accept the invite right from your inbox. (Sorry LinkedIn inbox, but I won’t be visiting you as often.) The new feature lets you see all the shared connections between you and the person requesting the invite and see the other people you may know, to better inform your decision. Plus, you can send LinkedIn invites and follow companies from the new app, too. But while the LinkedIn app is probably the most consumer-friendly feature of today’s release, PowerInbox has more coming out today, some of which will have more appeal to email marketers. With the new “PowerEmbeds” feature, for example, you can generate HTML that works in templates from MailChimp, ConstantContact or any ESP. For now, embeds for YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook Comments are offered. Meanwhile two “PowerApps” (Compose PowerApps and Sidebar PowerApps) are making their debut today as well. The former allows consumers to send interactive content in their email (YouTube and Vimeo). This is obviously less of a concern for Gmail web users, as Google already knows how to extract YouTube links in an email and feature the video beneath the message. But PowerInbox is not a Gmail-only service – it works on Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and others, including even smaller services like UnifiedInbox, SMAK and Fuser. The SideBar PowerApps put “apps” like your Facebook wall or Twitter feed right next to your main inbox, as an add-on widget. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Unifyo and Followup are currently supported. The new features are live now. To try them out, head here.
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| That’s Amore: Has Apple Bought Italian Music Editing Startup Redmatica? Posted: 30 May 2012 08:48 AM PDT  Everyone is focused on what hardware product Apple might launch next, but out of Italy comes reported news of a software development: the company has bought Redmatica, a small startup that specializes in digital music-editing apps. The news was reported by the Italian blog Fanpage, which also did some sleuthing to dig up a document from the Italian communications regulator AGCOM that seems to prove it — although we have also reached out to Apple for direct confirmation. Redmatica specializes in developing and selling software for digital music editing. Its main product is a piece of software called Keymap Pro (screen shot pictured here) an editor for sampled instruments, but its site lists four products in total — all designed to run on the Mac. Apple, meanwhile, has its own musician-focused software, in the form of Logic Pro (and the hugely popular GarageBand for more casual and/or poor music makers). It may be that Apple is looking at an aqui-hire situation to help beef up those offerings, or to incorporate some of that software into its existing products. Fanpage notes that revenues at Redmatica were at less than €100,000 per year, with income of €26,000. We have contacted Apple for confirmation of this deal and will update as we learn more.
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| Here’s Kleiner Partner Mary Meeker’s Latest Data Dump: Mind The Mobile Monetization Gap Posted: 30 May 2012 08:37 AM PDT  Mary Meeker, famed Internet analyst-turned-Kleiner Perkins partner, has released her latest data dump. Here you go: Quick thoughts first: Interesting slides are #16, which shows an estimate of $12 billion in revenue for mobile apps and advertising. She must be including feature phone revenue too, since Apple paid out about $2 billion with in-app purchases and paid app revenue last year on the platform. Google is obviously a fraction of that, but it has much, much higher mobile display ad revenue than Apple does. Slide #20 shows how terrible average revenue per user is for mobile users compared to desktop ones. It’s just ugly. Mobile ARPU for Zynga is about one-fifth of what it is on the desktop. Zynga’s case is skewed however, because their mobile titles are more advertising dependent than their Facebook games. Pandora is more hopeful. That company saved itself through its mobile apps which generate $3.87 per user. Pandora sells monthly subscriptions for about $3.99 through its app on iOS. #21 and #22 show the elephant in the room: how poor mobile monetization is affecting key metrics from Facebook and Google. Google’s cost-per-click is down in part because its mobile ads generate lower revenue than comparable desktop search ads do. Facebook has only just begun monetizing its mobile app, so clearly increased mobile usage is dragging down its overall revenue per user. In #23, Meeker says there is hope, pointing to the revenue path that Japanese mobile-gaming company GREE has followed over the last several years. GREE is actually not a great example because its growth potential was recently KO’ed by regulatory efforts. The company was heavily reliant on a gambling-like game mechanic called “gacha,” which the Japanese consumer affairs agency recently started investigating. GREE and its counterparts pulled back on this mechanic, which may damage its earnings for the next several quarters.
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| HTC Evo 4G LTE Review: Head-To-Head With The iPhone 4S And The Galaxy Nexus Posted: 30 May 2012 08:14 AM PDT  The Evo 4G LTE is one of the best phones to land on Sprint shelves in a while, but that’s not to say it has no competition over at the Yellow carrier. The Galaxy Nexus has propped itself up as the Android phone to beat, while the iPhone 4S is available at the same price: $199. So what will it take to pass up the iPhone and the GalNex for the latest iteration of the Evo line? We’ve put together this head-to-head chart to answer just such a question. As you can see, specs between the Evo and the GalNex are quite similar. The only noticeable differences come by way of UI and design language. If a pure Android experience is what you’re looking for, I would definitely recommend the Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. But there are also some HTC fans out there who happen to love the Sense UI, in which case the Evo would likely be the right choice. The design language is rather strong on the Evo 4G LTE, with soft touch gray, red metal, and shiny black plastic comprising the backside of the handset. The GalNex is a bit more reserved. And still, there’s the iPhone 4S to consider. Sure, the display is much smaller (3.5-in vs 4.65/.7-in), but the Retina display easily rivals much larger 720p displays. And few can resist the beautiful minimalist design of the iPhone and the intuitive functionality of iOS. Luckily, the decision is yours and not mine. Enjoy! Hands-on initial impressions of the Evo 4G LTE can be found here, and a full review will go live in the next couple days. Stay tuned!
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| BOKU Scales Up, Will Power Carrier Billing For In-App Payments In The T-Mobile Mall Posted: 30 May 2012 08:12 AM PDT  Another big advance for mobile payments startup BOKU: it has inked a deal with T-Mobile USA to provide carrier billing for the T-Mobile Mall, the digital storefront operated by the carrier. The deal is a signal of some momentum for the company: it comes less than a month after BOKU announced a similar deal with Sprint, and hot on the heels of a $35 million round of funding in March. Under the terms of the deal, app and game developers — but most specifically games developers — that make content for the Android-based T-Mobile Mall will be able to integrate carrier billing into their apps for in-app payments — meaning the charges will go straight to a user’s monthly bill. This is significant, because automatic billing potentially removes a barrier for users actually buying things in apps. T-Mobile currently has 34 million mobile subscribers. T-Mobile will be using BOKU’s 1-Tap Billing SDK, similar to the one used by Sprint, which brings the payment authentication down to a two-step process that doesn’t require the user to enter payment details. BOKU says that the commission it takes on its services are in the “teens” compared to rates of between 30 and 40 percent carriers typically collect on billing services for apps. For a company like BOKU — and those like Zong and Bango against which it competes in the area of carrier billing — because it takes a smaller margin on services, scaling up and getting more customers is crucial to its success. BOKU says it already processes "hundreds of millions of dollars in mobile payments” across 66 countries and 40 currencies, and in deals with more than 250 carriers covering some 3.2 billion consumers.
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| BoxPAY Debuts Its Carrier Billing Platform For Smart TVs Posted: 30 May 2012 08:08 AM PDT  Betting big on the future monetization opportunities to be found in the “smart TV” ecosystem is boxPAY, a company which is now bringing the carrier billing option to TV apps and services. With boxPAY, consumers can pay for Smart TV apps or make in-app purchases by charging those purchases to their mobile phone, no registration or credit card required. Instead, the purchase would show up on the customer’s next monthly bill from their mobile operator. Next week, the company will be demonstrating its service at the E3 conference in Los Angeles, where its software development kit (SDK) will be up-and-running on a Samsung Smart TV, the first platform the company plans to support. However, the team expects to have a version for Google TV in a month, which means it could also support the LG sets which are running Google TV (the newer models, that is). Although next week will be the company’s public debut, Gavin says they’ve already demonstrated the platform to a number of the biggest Smart TV manufacturers, but don’t have signed deals in place so can’t disclose names. To be clear, the service will work on different types of Smart TV platforms, not just Samsung’s or Google’s. Explains boxPAY co-founder Gavin McConnon, “some Smart TV manufacturers have their own app stores, and some use Google TV, or the Google Play store. BoxPAY has built our in-app billing product to work in both environments,” he says. McConnon adds that the team would “love to work with Google Play” as its carrier billing partner, but Google already offers carrier billing. That, of course, could be a limiting factor for its growth, unless they can figure out how to strike a deal. (Or Google TV doesn’t take off, ahem). McConnon notes boxPAY already has over 200 carrier relationships in 60 countries, however, which should at least be enticing to potential partners. Customers are charged either by Direct Operator Billing, or, in some cases, Premium SMS. Gavin adds that the company plans to reach out to Boxee and Roku in the future, too. BoxPAY was founded in 2011 in Dublin, Ireland by Gavin and his brother Iain McConnon, as an evolution of their previous premium mobile content company, which is currently how it’s being funded. The company now has offices in San Francisco, Sydney, and Johannesburg, and operates with a staff of 35. Gavin has been working in telecommunications for 10 years, and has launched four telecom businesses, including Global Billing Solutions, and, in 2006, Ireland’s first movie download service, Moviestar.ie (sold to ScreenClick in 2009).
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| Songkick’s Tourbox Makes It Easier For Musicians To Trumpet Their Concerts Across The Web Posted: 30 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT  I’m not a professional musician, but apparently it’s a headache for artists to publicize their tourdates on the myriad number of websites and apps that cater to music lovers. Not only is there Facebook and Twitter, but there’s YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud and Hype Machine. Enter Songkick, a concert promotion startup that’s backed by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. They have tons of those little widgets across the web that show when your favorite band is in town. Now they’re trying to make it easier for musicians to manage promotions themselves. They’ve built a product called Tourbox, which connects to a musician’s Facebook fan page and automates the publishing for concert dates across the web and in sites like YouTube, Tumblr, Vevo and Spotify. The company counts M83 and Of Montreal among Tourbox’s users so far. Songkick’s CEO Ian Hogarth said this was an oft-requested feature. “We want to make it incredibly easy for artists to take ownership of their data through Songkick,” he said. If the company can attract enough high-profile musicians to Tourbox, that should make the job of being a comprehensive concert guide that much easier. As for Songkick itself, the company gets about 6 million unique visitors per month and earns revenue off of ticket and merchandise sales. It partners with everyone from the very biggest ticket vendors to tiny independent companies to sell tickets. There are more than 100 different ticketing partners in all. “We’re not break-even yet but we do believe that our ultimate revenue model will be about the transactions we generate around ticketing and merchandising,” he said. Songkick scored Sequoia Capital’s first ever U.K. investment back in March, bringing the company’s total funding to about $17 million. They also had previous funding from include Y Combinator, SoftTech, The Accelerator Group and Index Ventures.
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| Posted: 30 May 2012 07:42 AM PDT  Google+, with 100 million active users, still has a long way to go before being anywhere near social network rival Facebook’s nearly one-billion subscribers. But it has been working hard to leverage its substantial audiences in other areas to do just that. And today saw the latest advance in that area, with the double news that it is launching Google+ Local, and sunsetting Google Places, its older, less social version of local listings and local search. Now, if you go to the web page for Google Places, you get two options: a link through to Google+ Local, or if you are a business, an option to claim your spot in Google’s directory — soon to be converted into its own Google + page, the company says. The change has been swift: Search Engine Land reports that as of this morning, some 80 million Google Places pages were converted to Google+ Local pages. (Hey- does that mean that Google+ can now say it has 180 million active users?) The service will now come with two enhancements: first, Google+ contacts that contribute recommendations and opinions on places in the directory will now show up when we search for those places. And second, to beef that up, Google is also integrating scores and recommendations from Zagat, the restaurant guide company it bought in September 2011. This looks to be the first major sign of how Google has integrated Zagat’s extensive data since the acquisition. If you are a fan of Zagat’s approach to restaurant reviews, you’ll be right at home here. Google says that from now on, all places will be scored using the 30-point scale used by Zagat that covers the areas of food, decor and ambiance. However, Google also says that recommendations and reviews from your contacts will remain “front and center.” The launch of Google+ Local also marks further steps in Google to bring its products together into a single platform: included will also be integration with search, maps and mobile access, and Local will also come up as a new tab on Google+ — so users won’t be lured away to use any of the dozens of other social/local/mobile search services and apps out there already. Will all this be enough to bring in the crowds? What Google still lacks in Google+ is a way of getting different businesses’ networks to interact with each other — meaning, Facebook may have its own Facebook Places, but it also has a range of apps from others, like Gogobot and more, that enhance that experience. Google is still largely relying on its own data to get the job done. That could make the experience more cohesive, or (the problem Google+ has been having up to now) a little too quiet. But don’t make a judgment just yet: Avni Shah, the director of product management who penned a blog post on the changes today, notes that “Today is just the first step, and you'll see more updates in the coming months.” As for what that might be, one guess is to look at what other social networks are doing to get people engaged: virtual currencies that can redeemed for actual goods (like discounts at venues); daily deals; and local alerts are all features I wouldn’t be surprised to see pop up here soon, if Google is doing its homework.
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| Play Safe For Android Locks Down Your Phone So Kids Can (Safely) Play Posted: 30 May 2012 07:08 AM PDT  Sometimes you just gotta do your own thing. Such was the case with Boris Vaisman, who dropped out of Y Combinator’s winter batch (where he was on kid-safe phone lockdown tool, Kyte). Says Vaisman, it was just a matter of “having a different vision in terms of how to move forward.” So what has Vaisman, along with co-founder Ankush Agarwal, now launched instead? Play Safe, an app for Android that lets kids safely play games on your own smartphone. To be honest, Kyte has the arguably bigger vision. It wants to provide a kid-friendly user interface for kids’ own Android smartphones. A Net Nanny for the modern age, if you will, but one infused with family-friendly features. However, that company is a bit of ahead of today’s reality (as well it should be, this is cutting edge stuff here). Only half of the U.S.’s mobile phones are smartphones. Today’s kids are still not necessarily rockin’ an iPhone or Android. The picture is changing, though. Nielsen says that two-thirds of all handsets being sold are smartphones. There will come a time when you will buy a phone, and it will be smart. In the meantime, a more common scenario is one where your kid (or for the childless: those grubby small people who your friends keep toting around), grabs your phone and starts to play games. Or whines for your phone until you give in and hand it over. The problem here, explains Vaisman, is that the kids download apps, delete your own apps, or access parts of your phone that they should not be messing around with. (The horror of finding you kid in your inbox I cannot describe.) It’s a serious issue. The solution? With Play Safe, kids are given a simple, pre-approved dashboard which lists only the games and apps you’re OK with them launching. In testing, our 2-year was fine with it. She said she didn’t really know what she was doing on the Android homescreen anyway. For now, the exit procedure from the dashboard is just hidden, not password-protected. You push and hold the Play Safe logo for 5 seconds straight to leave the app. Vaisman says that password protection will be added within a week. That will allow the app to be used with older kids, who are savvier about these things and are bound to figure out the trick. Vaisman and Agarwal are in bootstrapping mode now, but hope to use the app (currently free and ad-free) as the starting point to build a company whose focus is on family-friendly applications. Future apps would be paid and/or monetized in other ways, but with Play Safe, they’re looking to build credibility with parents and establish their brand. Play Safe is live in the
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| Simple.TV Targets Cord Cutters With A Kickstarter Campaign Posted: 30 May 2012 07:00 AM PDT  Simple.TV wants to help cord cutters record and have access to broadcast TV wherever they are, by connecting its device to an HD antenna and streaming those signals over the Internet. And it’s launching a Kickstarter campaign to help fund that vision, as it prepares to launch in mid-summer. Simple.TV makes a combination DVR and streaming device — kind of like a TiVo meets Slingbox — that lets users record basic cable and HD over-the-air TV signals, then stream them over the Internet to apps the company has built for the iPad or the iPhone. The company has also just built an HTML5 web app that will let users connect on devices that it hasn’t yet built apps for — like Android tablets, for instance. Simple.TV CEO Mark Ely says that the Kickstarter campaign will help fund the initial run of device sales. Rather than raising funding in exchange for equity, Kickstarter will provide some of the working capital required to start manufacturing the device. There are some other advantages to launching on Kickstarter rather than opening with sales on the Simple.TV website and on Amazon.com. Ely says that the crowdsourcing service will help it with inventory management and gauging demand for the device before it starts selling direct to consumers. Kickstarter is also a great way to gain support through social networks and by word-of-mouth. Simple.TV has multiple levels of support for the campaign, all of which will provide discounts for users who wish to sign up early and get one of the first devices to be shipped. With a goal of $125,000, the startup has a relatively low threshold of success — after all, it only takes about 1,000 unit sales for Simple.TV to hit its target.
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| Research In Motion Opens 10% Down A Day After Issuing A “Business Update” Posted: 30 May 2012 07:00 AM PDT  After a rough day yesterday, RIM’s stock opened 10 percent lower today, trading at $10.05 at the opening bell. The stock price briefly recovered but it’s on a steady downward trend as of the writing of this post. If this slide continues, the stock is set to hit a low not seen since 2003. Trading of RIM shares was halted for 15 minutes yesterday in order to issue a what the company called a “business update“. CEO Thorsten Heins detailed RIM’s recent challenges, and also explained that the company is employing the help of Royal Bank of Canada and J.P. Morgan to evaluate financial strategies. The company also warned that it will report a loss for the fiscal quarter ending on June 2. This came on the heels of report that states RIM is set to lay off a major chunk of its workforce. Things at RIM are set to get worse before they get better. It seems nearly every week another high-placed executive is leaving the company. The RIM of the future (if there is a future for RIM) will look nothing like the RIM of the past. I still believe RIM can recover. The company has a good chunk of the enterprise smartphone market and the products in the pipeline are very compelling. However, RIM needs to make it through these dark days first and hiring bankers is a good start.
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| Nokia 808 Pureview Goes Live On Amazon’s UK Site, Available June 21 Posted: 30 May 2012 06:53 AM PDT  Much has been said about the Nokia 808 Pureview since its debut at MWC in February, but most recently the rumors have centered around delayed availability in the UK. The phone, and its 41-megapixel camera, weren’t expected to hit shelves across the pond until July. But according to Amazon’s UK site, the phone will be available on June 21 unlocked for £499.98 (US$778). Camera happy customers are more than welcome to place their pre-orders now. The big selling point for the 808 Pureview (if you haven’t already figured it out) is a 41-megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss sensor. To be fair, that 41-megapixel figure is a bit misleading. In actuality, the camera is taking 41 megapixels of raw data, shrinking it down to improve resolution, and churning out something closer to an 8-megapixel photo. That 8-megapixel photo, however, will be much better than an 8-megapixel image taken with a much smaller sensor (the Pureview 808 sensor is 1/1.2″). The phone, on the other hand, is more of a beast than a beauty. It’s clunky, and it runs Symbian. But surely there are some early adopters out there waiting to get a taste of Pureview imaging — it will, after all, appear on Nokia’s Windows Phones soon enough. [via SoMobile]
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| A New Roambi: Turn Your Biz Reports Into Sexy iPad Zines, Then Sell ‘Em In The App Store Posted: 30 May 2012 06:49 AM PDT  According to the IDC, 17.4 million tablets were shipped worldwide in the first quarter, with the lion’s share (68 percent) of those being iPads. As the iPad’s popularity has grown, it’s begun to find increasing adoption in the enterprise and among IT decision makers. As a result, some companies are looking to find better ways to utilize the iPad’s interface and unique display to present and visualize business data in more exciting and engaging ways. Roambi, one of these slick new business intelligence (BI) apps, is finding success enabling companies to transform their snooze-inducing Salesforce, Oracle, or SAP data (i.e. BI data) into interactive mobile dashboards, snappy charts and sexy graphs, and instantly deliver them to the iPad. Building on its initial use case, last year Roambi released its so-called “Roambi Flow”, an app and content system that allows users to easily create and share original documents and interactive reports using analytics, text, graphics, video, and collaborative content. Designed with the iPad interface in mind, those reports really look more like magazine-style publications, but based entirely on the custom content you provide. (Not unlike a BI data-version of Inkling.) And today MeLLmo (the creator of Roambi) is taking its functionality one step further, moving from simply being a content creator to becoming a distributor and publisher as well, by launching a new platform that enables organizations to deliver analytics and multimedia content to anyone with an iPad. In other words, the key value proposition for the new platform is that companies can now not only create interactive reports in Roambi Flow, but actually turn those magazine-style reports into apps that can be published on the App Store, with customer logos, etc. The platform also includes new licensing and features that give businesses the ability to distribute their custom Roambi reports both internally, just to staff, or externally to customers and consumers. They can also create and distribute co-branded materials in a single issue or series as iPad apps, saving money by removing the need to hire specialized designers, and, in turn, extending the reach of their brand thanks to the App Store’s massive, built-in user base. As an illustrative example, an analyst firm, say, could upload a PDF, automatically transform it into a Roambi Flow document (i.e. a flip-style magazine for iPad), add interactive analytics, photos and videos, and then publish it as their own app on the App Store — either for targeted customers or open download. What’s more, companies can do this over and over, ad nauseum, publishing a bunch of separate apps or creating multiple editions within one. That company could also use its distribution mechanism to continuously publish the most up-to-date sales presentations for their sales force, for example, or use it as a marketing tool, publishing brochure-style content for open downloading. In addition to its platform launch, the startup is today introducing Roambi Pulse — its tenth visualization tool for the iPad — which allows users to compare key performance indicators in animated, vivid display. By embedding historical performance of key metrics within interactive titles, users can swipe and tap their way through (what are presumably) more compelling and engaging insights. A Roambi Pulse sample can be found in the free Roambi app now available in the App Store. As for integration? Roambi’s platform connects with a mess of business information sources and integrates with existing systems from IBM Cognos, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP BusinessObjects, Salesforce Sales Cloud, and Google Docs. MeLLmo raised $30 million from Sequoia in its first round of institutional funding back in September. For more info, find Roambi at home here.
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| Flipboard Planning To Release Android Beta For Everyone Who Doesn’t Have A Galaxy S III Posted: 30 May 2012 06:47 AM PDT  One of the nice little surprises at Samsung’s Galaxy S III unveiling in London was that the device would be preloaded with the fabled Android version of the Flipboard social magazine app. The news came from out of the blue — while the iOS version has garnered plenty of acclaim and some nifty new updates, Android users were (largely) left out in the cold. Now it appears that the app will soon be finding its way onto other Android devices, but perhaps not in the way that most users would hope. According to a new report from Engadget, the Flipboard team is close to releasing a beta version of the app to a small number of users to gain critical feedback before launching the final product. But why the slow and steady approach? Engadget’s sources say it’s because of the sheer number of devices they have to account for. As wonderful has having a device for every niche is, it’s pretty clear that the process of ensuring a consistent experience across multiple hardware configurations can be a real headache. It seems especially difficult when the iOS version of the app has become well known for its handsome design and solid usability — making sure that experience carries over to the hordes of Android devices floating around out there is certainly no trivial feat. If all of this holds true, then Flipboard is being very smart about how it goes about making those final tweaks. There will always be people willing to go through the extra work of loading up an .apk on their device in order to be the first to have something, and using them as a testbed for a wider release down the line only makes sense. For now though, there’s still no official word on a release date — the Flipboard for Android page only says that the app will launch in “the coming months.” Those of you who don’t care much for minor imperfections can dive right in though — the .apk was pulled from a Galaxy S III demo unit prior to launch, and you too can join in the fun provided you know where to look.
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| Inspired By Your Home: The Click Wall Switch Watch Posted: 30 May 2012 06:44 AM PDT Do you ever find yourself wishing that the act of telling time was as simple, and tactile, as flipping a light switch in your home? If so, then the folks at Watchismo have got quite the surprise in store for you. Aptly named the “Click Wall Switch” watch, it resembles a squared-off interpretation of modern wall switches. Rather than firing up an incandescent bulb, however, you’ll be lighting up LEDs on the face of the watch display the time or date. The LEDs shine through the plastic on the face, adding a bit of geeky charm to the proceedings. Practical? Absolutely not – this is firmly in the whimsical camp. But, it’s certain to grab some attention (this sucker is 45mm x 47mm), and it’ll give you something to fiddle with if boredom sets in. Watchismo has the 4 colors (black, blue, red, white) on sale for a tad under $100.
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| Amazon-Owned LOVEFiLM, The Netflix Of Europe, Signs Streaming Deal With NBCUniversal Posted: 30 May 2012 06:40 AM PDT  In the midst of Amazon’s recent moves to rapidly grow its content collection on Amazon Prime Instant Video, the company has also been brokering deals for another one of its video properties: European Netflix competitor LOVEFiLM. Today, the company is announcing a new multi-year deal with NBCUniversal International Television Distribution, which will offer LOVEFiLM members access to streaming titles from Universal Pictures during the second pay window. The titles will be available through the LOVEFiLM Instant service, and will start at £4.99 a month. As with Netflix, the streaming video service supports a wide variety of devices, including PCs, Macs, the iPad, internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players, as well as game consoles like the Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation. There are 175 devices, in total, which are supported. The new NBCUniversal deal will bring familiar U.S. titles to LOVEFiLM’s members, like 'It's Complicated', 'Nanny McPhee Returns', 'Leap Year', 'Green Zone', 'The Wolfman', 'Robin Hood', 'Scott Pilgrim vs The World', 'The American', 'Paul', 'Fast And Furious 5', 'Bridesmaids', 'Johnny English Reborn', 'Snow White and the Huntsman', 'Bourne Legacy', 'Dr Seuss' The Lorax' and 'Safe House'. However, Amazon did not announce the number of new titles the content deal offered. (Perhaps implying its not large enough to boast about?) LOVEFiLM, which Amazon purchased back in January 2011, after having held a large minority stake in the company for some time, has also been trying to wean itself off of DVD rentals like its stateside competitor. The company now has over 2 million members in the U.K., Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, and hosts over 70,000 titles, DVD, games and streaming combined. Amazon has previously signed streaming video deals for its Prime Instant Video service with Paramount, Discovery, Viacom, 20th Century FOX and others.
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| The Nest Thermostat Is Now Available At The Apple Store Posted: 30 May 2012 05:26 AM PDT  If any household product deserves a spot in the Apple Store, it’s the Nest Thermostat. Never mind the common denominator of long-time Apple employee, Tony Fadell, the Nest Thermostat exemplifies Apple’s mantra of making technology accessible. The Nest isn’t just a pretty face. Behind the shiny exterior are enough disruptive bits to make thermostat giant, Honeywell, attempt to sue the company out of existence. Starting today, the Nest is now available in Apple’s retail stores and the website. The Apple Store sells the Nest at its full, $249 MSRP — Lowes sells it for the same price. But as the company promises, homeowners should recoup that high price with monthly savings on their utility bill thanks to the Nest’s learning and motion sensing features. Owners can also control the settings from iOS and Android devices, arguably allowing for even more savings. As The Verge points out, this comes just one day after the Nest headed to the Great White North. Just yesterday, Nest Labs announced Canadian availability of its learning thermostat because, you know, even Canadians deserve lower utility bills by way of a beautiful device.
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| Southeast Meetup Reminders: Savannah, Raleigh, And Charlotte Are Set, Atlanta Not Iffy [UPDATE!] Posted: 30 May 2012 05:11 AM PDT  If you’ve been keeping up at all, you should know that we’re planning a tour of the Southeast during the second week of July. We’re hitting all the hottest spots, including Savannah, Atlanta, Raleigh, and Charlotte (in that order), but we seem to be hitting a tiny bump in the south-bound road. As much as I’d love to hit up Mr. Armstrong for carte blanche on this whole shindig, we like to give you fine people as much control over the networking event as possible, including the venue, the alcohol, the food, and the friends you’ll bring along. It is, after all, for you. That said, we are still looking for sponsors, most desperately in the ATL. We’re also still looking for a venue (no, not an office) in Atlanta, as well as more sponsors in Raleigh and Charlotte — Savannah, on the other hand, is a done deal. (Hat tip to Savannah.) Prices are as follows: $500 will get your logo and a brief description of the company in each post related to the meet-up. There are usually about three leading up to the event, and one during the event. This will also get you a spot on our TC Meetup Banner, which will be hung at the event. $800 will get you all the benefits of a logo sponsorship, along with your own space at the event to demo and hang your own signage. We understand that cost is an issue for startups, but so is publicity, which is the entire reason we’re doing this in the first place. If you’re interested in a sponsorship for the Atlanta, Raleigh, or Charlotte meetups, please drop me a line at Jordan@techcrunch.com with the subject line SPONSOR – [INSERT CITY NAME HERE]. Here are the details that are already set in stone: Savannah is happening on July 6th at the offices of The Creative Coast, 15 West York Street. It’s going to be a smaller crowd, I suspect, but considering we found Vinylmint at the Norfolk mini-meetup, I’m excited to see what Savannah has to offer. You can RSVP here. Special thanks to Packard Place for hosting the event.
Atlanta is happening on July 9. We’re holding it at Sweetwater Brewery You can RSVP here. Raleigh-Durham is happening on July 10th at the Tyler’s Taproom in the American Tobacco Historic District. We will be taking over most of the restaurant and garden so roll on over. You can RSVP here.
Charlotte is happening on July 11th. We are still looking for a location although we’ll finalize it by Monday. You can RSVP here. Special thanks to Packard Place for hosting the event.
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