The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘afternoon’

As you may have noticed, TechCrunch was down for an extended period of time this afternoon. In case you haven’t read about why yet, it’s because WordPress.com suffered through some 110 minutes of downtime, as WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg has explained just now on the company’s blog.

TechCrunch is one of the millions of blogs hosted on WordPress.com (not to be confused with sites that run the WordPress software but are hosted elsewhere). All told, some 10.2 million blogs went down — wiping out some 5.5 million pageviews, WordPress estimates. This was their worst outage in 4 years.

So what happened?

Mullenweg says WordPress is still gathering details but their initial diagnosis is that “an unscheduled change to a core router by one of our datacenter providers messed up our network in a way we haven’t experienced before, and broke the site.” He notes that this also tripped up all the mechanisms to prevent a total failure, so that occurred. Luckily, no data was lost in the outage, it just simply could not be sent out.

Mullenweg ends with, “I hope it will be much longer than four years before we face a problem like this again.” So say we all.

It’s been nearly two weeks since the Super Bowl, but the stats behind one of the world’s biggest media spectacles keep pouring in. YouTube has just written about the impact some of the Super Bowl ads have had on its site, offering rare insight into just how much attention those million-dollar advertising spots will get you.

During the days following the Super Bowl, YouTube reported an 18,000% spike in queries for “Snickers” (no doubt spurred by their ad featuring Betty White and Abe Vigoda). YouTube also says that mobile queries for Doritos rose by 5,000% (note that the Snickers stat was for YouTube’s entire property but Doritios was for mobile only  — it’s a bit strange that they aren’t giving an apples to apples comparison).

YouTube ran a week-long contest beginning on Super Bowl Sunday that invited users to choose their favorite ad using a special site called YouTube Ad Blitz, during which 2.9 million votes were cast (Doritos took the top spot).

YouTube mentions one other interesting stat: clicks on the site’s Promoted Videos, which allow users and brands to advertise their videos on the site, doubled over Super Bowl weekend.

It was only a few months ago that StockTwits, a real time platform for stock traders to share information, broke away from Twitter and forged ahead on its own. Part of that separation was the creation of a desktop AIR application that created an entire investor ecosystem, including video, news and charts. Now those features are appearing on the StockTwits site itself, at beta.stocktwits.com. For now the company will run the old and new sites side by side and give users a period of time to get comfortable with the beta site.

Co-founder Howard Lindzon suggests five things that new StockTwits users will want to do on the new site: watch the suggested user stream, peruse charts shared by other users, check out specific filtered ticker pages (example), watch the 24-hour StockTwits TV stream, or contribute your own content.

Last month StockTwits acquired a financial news site and continues to bring in authoritative voices to share their trading strategies via blog posts and video.

StockTwits is like cocaine for hard core traders, They started long ago with just a filtered stream of Twitter messages that touched on stocks. But they’ve continued to add resources that traders want and need to their product suite. I won’t be surprised if more than a few of the big financial guys make a run for them this year. There’s so much concentrated activity flowing through StockTwits that any number of suitors will be eager to take control of this community.

In less than six months, online restaurant reservation site OpenTable has seated an additional one million diners via its mobile apps. In late October, OpenTable had reached the milestone of seating one million diners via its mobile offerings, a year after its iPhone app launched. It took only four and a half months to seat another million diners. Additionally, the site says that based on an estimation of a $50 average check per diner, OpenTable claims that diners using its mobile applications have generated more than $100 million in revenue for its restaurant partners.

OpenTable allows diners to find and book reservations at more than 11,000 different restaurants in multiple countries via mobile applications for the iPhone, Palm, Blackberry and Android. Other smartphone users can book reservations through OpenTable’s mobile-optimized Web site.

The company also reported strong earnings this afternoon, with Q4 2009 revenue coming in at $19.2 million, representing a a 32% increase over Q4 2008 revenue, which was $14.5 million. OpenTable’s total revenues for 2009 were $68.6 million, up 23% over 2008 revenues of $55.8 million. In 2009, OpenTable increased its number of participating restaurants in North America by 17%, with a total of 10,850 partners by the end of 2009. The number of international partners also increased, rising by 44% to 1501 participating establishments. Total number of diners in North American were 11.8 million, a 39% increase from Q4 2008.

Last year, OpenTable filed for a healthy IPO, despite recessionary conditions in the markets. OpenTable is a solid internet company that has a viable business model. On the restaurant side, OpenTable delivers reservation management software to establishments through a Web browser and collects monthly subscription revenues, similar in theory to the offerings that software companies like Salesforce sell to clients.

Baidu, the leading search engine operator in China, this afternoon reported blow-out financial results for the fourth quarter of 2009. The company’s Q4 profit rose 48.2% to 427.9 million yuan (approx. $62.7 million), or $1.80 a share. Revenue rose 40% to 1.26 billion yuan, or about $184.7 million, compared to the same period a year ago.

In the wake of Google’s stand against censorship of its search engine in China and its consideration to cease business operations in the country altogether, Baidu – to Wall Street’s surprise – raised its sales forecasts for the first quarter of 2010, projecting total revenues ranging from $176 million to $181 million, representing a 48% to 52% year-over-year increase.

In other words, Baidu expects to benefit directly from Google’s possible exit from China, although that dispute is far from resolved at this point.

Baidu has performed better than other Chinese Internet stocks this year on expectations that the company will gain sales from Google’s customers in China, the world’s largest Web market with an estimated 380 million users (according to eMarketer).

The Beijing-based firm holds about 64% of the country’s search market share, well ahead of Google.cn, which holds approximately 31%. Google stands to lose a large chunk of that share if it ends up exiting the Chinese market, which is not a made decision yet. The Mountain View, California company threatened to leave China after being hit with cyber attacks that originated from the country.

The reported financial results and the raised forecasts sent Baidu’s shares up 8.68% at $473 in after-hours trading. Clearly, investors don’t care much about the decision of both Baidu’s CTO and COO to quit the company for ‘personal reasons’ earlier this year.

If you’ve ever tried to listen in on a Google earnings call on the web, it’s kind of a pain. That’s especially true if you use a Mac because Google insist that you use either Real Player (which is awful on the Mac) or Windows Media Player (which doesn’t work on a Mac). Of course, you could always call into an actual phone number, but who does that anymore? Thankfully, for its Q4 2009 earnings being announced this afternoon, Google has made things easier.

Gone are the options to listen via Real Player or Windows Media Player. Instead, you have one option: Webcast on YouTube. Google has set up a YouTube account, GoogleIR (investor relations) that will host the earnings call and the follow-up Q&A session. All you need is a web browser with Flash installed to listen in. Currently, you’ll heard the traditional classical music that plays while everyone waits for the call to start.

And while it won’t be clear until it actually starts, it looks like Google could be taking advantage of the video aspect of this webcast as well. Google always releases slides alongside its earnings numbers to better illustrate results. It looks as if Google may run these slides during the call for a more interactive experience. Again, it’s not yet clear if that will actually happen, but that would be a good way to better illustrate what they are discussing — and a good use of YouTube for this type of thing.

Google’s earnings will be announced at 1:30 PM PT today. We’ll be listening in and following up with analysis. Most accounts have Google beating estimates relatively easily, despite the latest situations surrounding China and possibly their growing rivalry with Apple.

In a defining speech today on Internet Freedom, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton extended foreign policy to the Internet, calling it a “global networked commons.” Her speech harked back to Franklin Roosevelt’s famous Four Freedoms speech, and updated each one (Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Worship, Freedom From Want, Freedom From Fear) to apply to the Internet. She also added a new freedom, the Freedom to Connect:

The freedom to connect – the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly in cyber space.

Apparently, it is now the U.S. government’s foreign policy to protect and promote these freedoms throughout the information “commons” which extend beyond our physical borders.  It is also U.S. foreign policy to encourage corporations, particularly those in the technology industry, to protect these freedoms.  Call it corporate statecraft.  Towards the end of the speech, Clinton applauded Google’s recent decision to rethink whether it will continue to operate in China following coordinated cyber attacks on its operations there. Not only that, she encouraged other companies to follow Google’s lead:

I hope that refusal to support politically-motivated censorship will become a trademark characteristic of American technology companies. It should be part of our national brand. I’m confident that consumers worldwide will reward firms that respect these principles.

Certainly, the Internet knows no national boundaries. But trying to impose our ideas of freedom onto other countries, especially dictatorships, may end up being a futile effort. Nevertheless, Clinton explains why she thinks it is important to try:

Ultimately, this issue isn’t just about information freedom; it’s about what kind of world we’re going to inhabit. It’s about whether we live on a planet with one internet, one global community, and a common body of knowledge that unites and benefits us all. Or a fragmented planet in which access to information and opportunity is dependent on where you live and the whims of censors.

Going through the various freedoms, below I’ve distilled some of what she had to say.  On Freedom Of Expression, she notes:

Blogs, email, social networks, and text messages have opened up new forums for exchanging ideas – and created new targets for censorship.

. . . Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. They have expunged words, names and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. . . . With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world. Beyond this partition, viral videos and blog posts are becoming the samizdat of our day.

On Freedom Of Religion:

Just as these technologies must not be used to punish peaceful political speech, they must not be used to persecute or silence religious minorities.

On Freedom From Want:

. . . the internet can serve as a great equalizer. By providing people with access to knowledge and potential markets, networks can create opportunity where none exists. . . . A connection to global information networks is like an on ramp to modernity. . . . Information networks have become a great leveler, and we should use them to help lift people out of poverty.

On Freedom From Fear:

As we work to advance these freedoms, we must also work against those who use communication networks as tools of disruption and fear. . . . Governments and citizens must have confidence that the networks at the core of their national security and economic prosperity are safe and resilient.  This is about more than petty hackers who deface websites.

The State Department is actively developing tools to help citizens of other countries express themselves freely on the Internet and circumvent censorship.  Clinton also announced that the State Department will launch an “innovation competition” to help promote these freedoms abroad:

We’ll be asking Americans to send us their best ideas for applications and technologies that help to break down language barriers, overcome illiteracy, and connect people to the services and information they need. Microsoft, for example, has already developed a prototype for a digital doctor that could help provide medical care in isolated rural communities. We want to see more ideas like that. And we’ll work with the winners of the competition and provide grants to help build their ideas to scale.

Sounds like the State Department is going to start an Internet Freedom fund.

Photo Credit: Flickr/ U.S. State Dept.

You guys said that you want to see lots more of show floor so we’re going live for the rest of the afternoon. Devin and the Livestream guys are currently en route to Yurtopia to get ear molds made.

Read more here:
The Livestream feed will be live until 5 and then again tonight from 7-10 (hopefully)

Yesterday some of Europe’s most influential and active seed/angel investors got together in London for a ’summit’ organised by Seedcamp, the pan European early stage startup programme. Although press weren’t invited, we understand the morning of SeedSummit was devoted to frank exchanges between the investors about the current stage of early stage seed funding in Europe, with the afternoon reserved for a showcase of Seedcamp startup pitches.

Held at the offices of NESTA in London, the event was outlined by Seedcamp’s Saul Klein on his blog.

Attendees included around 60 people, including high profile investors like Jeff Clavier, Martin Varsavsky, Brent Hoberman, Lukasz Gadowski, Stefan Glaenzer, Dave McClure, Andy Philips, William Reeve, Robin Klein, Jyri Engestrom and Sherry Coutu.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Needless to say, AT&T’s none too happy about Verizon’s ” Theres a Map for That ” campaign. AT&T first complained about the ads back in October, saying they were misleading. Verizon responded by adding a few extra words and an itsy bitsy disclaimer - but that wasn’t enough for AT&T.

View original here:
Leaked AT&T Memo: If Anyone Asks About The Verizon Lawsuit, Just Tell Them We’re Awesome