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Posts Tagged ‘crunch-network’

As some people noticed, at approximately 10:30 pm PST on Monday evening the main site in the TechCrunch Network – techcrunch.com – was hacked and redirected. The site was back up briefly at 11:30 pm but shortly went down again. As of 2:00 am, the site is back up and appears to be stable.

At this point we’re still gathering information on how the site was compromised, and will update this post with additional information.

Use of the location-based service Foursquare is on the up and up. But it’s use is mainly limited to mobile phones currently. That makes sense since the service is all about sending your location when on the go. But it would be nice sometimes to use it on your computer (beyond visiting the rudimentary mobile site from your browser). Enter FoursquareX.

This new application built by software developer Eric Butler is easily the best way I’ve ever seen to interact with Foursquare on a computer. Using Foursquare’s API, Butler has made a OS X client that not only allows you to see where your friends are, but even allows you to check-in at venues. And when paired with the notification application Growl, it’s a great way to get alerted about what’s happening on Foursquare without having to check your phone every few minutes.

The app is mainly meant to run in the background in your menu bar to serve you notifications (again, via Growl) when friends check-in places. But the more interesting part of the app may be its map component. If you open that up, you’ll get a window displaying a Google Map with all of your friends’ Foursquare icons overlaid on it to show where they are in the world. You can zoom in or out to show more detail of where they are. Or you can click on their names displayed in a timeline to the left of the map to bring up more details about their latest check-in.

There’s another view to this map too which gives you a visual representation of the Foursquare venues close to where you currently are. Clicking on any of them allows you to easily check-in. To the right of this map view there is a list of the venues currently trending on Foursquare (where multiple people are checking-in) as well as your “favorites” (the venues you check-in to the most).

There is also a setting for the app that lets you get notifications when other people check-in to the same venue you’re checked-in at, even if you don’t know them. Some people may not like that, but if you’re interested in meeting new people that you have at least one thing in common with (your use of Foursquare), it’s kind of an interesting way to do that.

Again, this app is currently Mac-only (and specifically, Snow Leopard-only), but if you’re addicted to Foursquare, it’s a must-have. Find it here.

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OpenCandy, the startup that tries to offer bundled applications that you might actually want to use, has added Joe Kraus, founder of Excite, JotSpot, and DigitalConsumer.org, to their board. Kraus is currently a Director of Product Management at Google.

Alongside the news, OpenCandy has also shared a pair of graphs showing their growth over the last year. They haven’t provided any absolute figures so we can only get a vague idea of how well they’re doing, but they’re clearing showing some hockey stick growth.

OpenCandy operates in territory that’s long been the domain of spam: bundled applications. Oftentimes when you download a piece of Windows software you’re prompted to install another application along with it (the most notorious of these are apps like WeatherBug and the Ask Toolbar). Most of the time, people don’t actually want this additional software they’re installing, but they inadvertently agree to install it anyway because their installer makes that the default choice.

Despite griping from users, developers continue to offered bundled apps with their software, because it provides them with an extra stream of revenue. When you install a bundled app, the developer of the original application gets a kickback.

OpenCandy is trying to make this process more transparent and intelligent. When you install an app that’s using OpenCandy, you’ll be asked if you want to install a bundled promotional app. But instead of making this the default action, installing the second application is opt-in, so you’re not going to do it accidentally. OpenCandy also looks to ensure that the applications it offers are high quality, without spam and spyware. It lets software developers “recommend software they love”, without losing the bundle revenue stream.

Of course plenty of people object to bundled apps in the first place, but this clearly a better solution than the misleading install flows.

See an OpenCandy Recommendation (80 seconds) from OpenCandy on Vimeo.

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Yesterday, we noted that $5 million had be raised in donations for Haiti though text messaging in the U.S. alone. Today, that number surpassed $10 million, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced. Perhaps more importantly, some of the big players involved in the donations are making moves to make sure the money gets to Haiti faster.

As some people noted in the comments yesterday, there had been talk of 90 day delays for this money donated via text to be released to the various organizations helping out in Haiti. Since then, a number of the companies have committed to giving the money immediately. Verizon, for example, is giving its share (of the then $9 million), $2.98 million, immediately to the American Red Cross. Sprint, meanwhile, is giving 80% of the $1.2 million it has raised so far immediately. AT&T has apparently raised the most so far with $4.2 million (of the larger $10 million) and is also thinking about ways to get the money to Haiti faster.

All of this money has been raised with the help of mGive simply by people using their cellphones to text HAITI to the number 90999. Doing so will automatically donate $10 to the Red Cross, which will be added on to your bill at the end of the month. But that’s not the only way to give over text message. Here’s a list of many of the ways to text to help Haiti:

• Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
• Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
• Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
• Text YELE to 501501 to donation $5 to Yele
• Text RELIEF to 30644 to get automatically connected to Catholic Relief Services and donate money with your credit card
• Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way
• Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
• Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International

[photo: flickr/ydhsu]

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Last month, MySpace finally completed its deal to acquire troubled music startup Imeem. Unfortunately for imeem fans, the service shut down as soon as the deal was completed, redirecting them to a MySpace Music splash screen. MySpace was subsequently trashed by outraged users who wanted their playlists back. Today, they’re getting what they asked for: MySpace has just sent out an Email to imeem users, informing them that they’ll be able to restore their playlists using a new import tool. We’ve confirmed with MySpace that the feature is now live.

The process is simple: users enter their imeem Email address, hit “Import Playlists”, and will find their imeem playlists restored under the “My Music” section of MySpace Music. The playlists will behave as normal MySpace playlists do, but will be labeled to indicate that they originated from imeem. The process should be seamless for most users, but there are a few caveats: MySpace won’t be able to restore songs where there are differences between the imeem and MySpace music license catalogs. MySpace says this won’t be an issue for most songs, but didn’t have an exact percentage for how much of the catalogs overlap.

It’s worth pointing out again that MySpace didn’t really have anything to do with the shutdown of imeem — it would have shut down anyway as its licences expired and money ran out.

Here’s the Email message being sent to imeem users:

We’re happy to share that we’ve recreated your imeem playlists on MySpace Music. We spent a lot of time and effort to make a home for your music on our platform. Beginning today you’ll be able to access your playlists. Here’s how:

1) Access your playlist by clicking here: http://www.myspace.com/music/import-playlists. You will need to be logged into MySpace. Click here to login or signup for MySpace.

2) Enter your imeem e-mail address.

3) Click import and we will retrieve your playlists.

4) Upon completion, your playlists will be stored in “My Music,” our playlist management tool. All playlists can be identified by the name “import_[yourplaylistname]”

This process isn’t perfect and while we expect most of your content to have migrated from imeem to MySpace Music, we appreciate your understanding if any discrepancies between the two music catalogs affected your individual playlists.

If you have questions, please visit http://faq.myspace.com/app/home.

Thanks,
The MySpace Music Team

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As AOL started its long-awaited layoffs of 2,500 employees this week, one high-profile officer who is rumored to be leaving is chief technology officer Ted Cahall. Whether he is taking a severance package or simply leaving on his own accord, we don’t know, but sources tell us that he is already communicating to some of his direct reports that he will be leaving. He would be joining other high-profile AOL departees such as former SVP Eric Bosco and many others.

Cahall joined AOL in 2007 from United Online, and prior to that he was the CIO at Cnet. He was in charge of AOL’s ISP infrastructure, which is a declining business that TIm Armstrong is squeezing for all the cash he can get out of it. Cahall also invented DynaPub, the publishing system AOL uses for its own content. But a new content-management system called Seed is being pushed by CEO Tim Armstrong to make it easier to churn out Website content from both AOL staffers and contributors.

It is not clear how much of Dynapub is in Seed or whether it is an entirely new system. Regardless, Armstrong and Cahall probably did not see eye-to-eye on the technology direction of the company. I’ve reached out to both Cahall and AOL for comment.

Update: AOL spokesperson Tricia Primrose says “No, he’s not leaving” and that he remains CTO.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Businesses are becoming increasingly interested in using location-based check-in services like Foursquare to encourage people to come to their stores. But those networks still have a relatively limited reach, and the majority of patrons haven’t heard of them. PlaceWidget offers a potential way to help with that.

The simple service uses the Foursquare API to allow any venues to embed a widget on their website. This widget, which prominently features the Foursquare logo shows the venue name, its address and phone number, and the number of people checked in. This is a good way to spread the word about Foursquare if businesses want to start using it more to offer up special deals to customers, and to entice them to come back.

And the widget also offers the venue a way to give thanks to its best customers. Below the standard data, the widget shows the Foursquare mayor of the venue, along with their picture. For those unaware, a “mayor” is the Foursquare user who checks-in to the venue the most amount of times. The widget also shows how many mayor preceded the current mayor.

Finally, the widget also shows the Tips for that venue that Foursquare users leave about what to try, buy, or do at that particular place.

Creator Brad Kellett says that Foursquare co-founder Naveeen Selvadurai gave him the idea on the Foursquare dev mailing list. It’s a solid one that both venues and Foursquare should love. And creating a widget is three simple steps. Once you do that, you’ll get a snippet of JavaScript to embed in your site and you’re good to go. Kellett also says that a WordPress plug-in is coming shortly to make it even easier to create and customize these widgets.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Yesterday, Inside Facebook reported on a nifty MySpace feature called Fan Video that allows users to pull in their Facebook profile photos using Facebook Connect — a notable move given the sites’ longtime rivalry. Some other outlets ran with the story, with CNET calling it “hard evidence that MySpace is committed to using the technology on its site.” As it turns out, that probably isn’t the case: we’re hearing that this implementation was only integrated as a one-off for Fan Video, and that it is not indicative of a MySpace move to embrace Facebook Connect on a wider scale.

In fact, we’re hearing that MySpace hasn’t even decided if they’re going to implement Facebook Connect on a wide scale at all, despite the rumors that have been circling for months.

Fan Video was built as a promotion for the UK launch of MySpace Music in December. The app is simple: it imports your profile photo using either MySpaceID or Facebook Connect, and inserts it into one of a half dozen music videos from big name artists like Alicia Keys and 50 Cent. The results are actually pretty entertaining — I now have a video of Alicia Keys singing a love song as she gazes longingly at a photo of me. But we’re hearing that the app didn’t come directly from MySpace — it was actually built by a third party under commission.

In related news, we’ve recently heard that Twitter is close to launching their answer to Facebook Connect.

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Now that everyone knows the iSlate is real, the question is: what the hell is this thing going to be like? How will it work? What will wow us about the iSlate that we never really expected?

A tipster just dug up some great details about new multi-touch gestures that may help answer these questions [CrunchGear summarized many other cool gestures here]. Obviously, we don’t know if Apple will use this technology, but patents from a company they previously acquired, Fingerworks, reveal two patents that might apply to the new Apple Tablet.

Eyeka, which connects brands and creative consumers, has raised €3 million ($4 million) in a second round of financing. The company already had €5 million in backing in 2006 with Ventech, DN Capital and SFR Developpement, while the company was focused on a platform to enhance pictures and videos management from mobiles. For this new round, previous investors are joined by French VC I-Source. This new round is to accelerate their international development and develop new product. Essentially speaking it’s a platform for crowd-sourcing ad campaigns for ad agencies and brands.

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