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Posts Tagged ‘grunberg’

Greg Grunberg and his partners August Trometer and Rick Yeager have a successful iPhone App called Yowza - it’s basically a location-aware coupon app that gives you great deals at major merchants - and Greg plays Matt Parkman on NBC’s Heroes, a program I’m told is quite popular with a certain demographic. They are two very cool guys.

I got a chance to talk to Greg and August about building iPhone apps, acting while topless, and was quite close to getting Hayden Panettiere’s phone number for you all.

CrunchGear: So… Yowza, is this your fallback move? Is this what happens when the bottom falls out of this whole acting fad?

Greg Grunberg: Exactly. This is for when they’re thinking about firing me and I’m like “I don’t understand, why is make-up putting some sort of an STD sore on my face? What’s going on? You know, is my character going to be killed off?”

I have always been business minded, always been sorta an entrepreneurial guy, I played a character on Felicity that was modeled after me actually. JJ Abrams is one of my closest friends so when he was creating that show, he was like, I’ve got the perfect character Sean Lumberg, He’s always looking for the next idea.

I mean I’ve been friends with JJ since preschool, believe it or not. All through college I was selling this and selling that, different businesses and stuff.

Seesmic, the Twitter and Facebook desktop client developed by Loic Le Meur, is launching its much talked about browser-based Twitter client today at TechCrunch’s Real-Time Stream CrunchUp. We first heard about the plans for the browser client at the TechFellow awards in June, but its been in stealth mode for the past few months.

We got a chance to test it out and it’s pretty cool. It reminds me of a Gmail interface for Twitter. Currently, the browser client only includes support for Twitter but Le Meur says that Facebook integration will be coming soon. The client is pretty basic, simple to use and similar in some ways to the desktop client.

You can open up your timeline in a column, your mentions in another column and your direct messages in another column. You can also use the mouse to roll over a Twitter handle and will be given the option to see the user’s profile, message the user or unfollow the user. My favorite part of this interface is using the timeline in the single column mode, which makes it seem like a simple, easy to use email application. The other compelling part of the browser client is the layout of the direct messages, which makes it simple to have and see a conversation with someone.

As we reported in June, Seesmic is also launching the fourth version of its desktop client today, which will include the ability to view Seesmic in single column mode or multi-column mode, with ability to change detach and change the size of columns. You will also be able to save space on the client by collapsing and expanding the sidebar with the click of a button and will still be shown minimized buttons with shortcuts to toggle between accounts, userlists and searches. Seesmic has also updated its internal code to improve performance and now allows you to modify the timeline limits in set in Seesmic Desktop to help control performance. These limits define the maximum number of messages kept in each of your timelines from your friends; replies, private and sent; and searches.

One of the differentiating factors between Seesmic and main rivals Tweetdeck and Tweetie is that Seemsic pulls in status updates from Facebook and allows users to update their Facebook status from the desktop client itself. Le Meur tells is that Facebook status updates are becoming as common as Twitter updates from Seesmic, especially since the client enables two-way communication.

What’s missing from today’s rollout is the Seesmic iPhone app, which Le Meur says is still in the works and will be released in the near future.

Seesmic Desktop, which faces competition from popular client and rival Tweetdeck and a plethora of others, officially launched in April. Le Meur tells us that Seesmic is getting about 10,000 downloads a day. PeopleBrowsr, another social network aggregator (and presenter at the Real-Time CrunchUp), recently made the opposite switch, adding a desktop Adobe Air client to its browser product.

As TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters recently wrote, the social network aggregator market is almost fully saturated and new players are throwing their hats in the ring every day. So it makes sense that Seesmic would want to not only build up its offering with useful features, but also try to conquer all the mediums—web, desktop and mobile. Check desktop and web, now onto mobile!

Disclosure: TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is an investor in Seesmic. I am not.

Here’s the video of Le Meur’s demo of the new version of Seesmic Desktop and the browser-based client:

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Why wasn’t I notified about this? Right around tax time, CG’s favorite TV host Cali Lewis interviewed Greg Grunberg, the brain hurting guy from Heroes. Although last Monday’s Gollum/Sylar episode was kind of a lump, I always enjoy Greg’s brain things and the Hiro/Ando/Matt Parkman baby thing was fun. Best off all, Grunberg is a full-bore geek with his own Twitter account and iPhone app he’s trying to pitch.

Why wasn’t I notified about this? Right around tax time, CG’s favorite TV host Cali Lewis interviewed Greg Grunberg, the brain hurting guy from Heroes .

View original here:
Yowza: Not Baby Matt Parkman on has an iPhone app

I’ll be in Helsinki next week and I’d like to plan a very informal meet-up on Tuesday, April 28 at about 7pm. All those Finns in favor, please email me at john@crunchgear.com with the subject like “RSVP HELSINKI.”

I don’t have any idea where we could meet - suggestions are welcome - but this would be dinner, drinks, and, potentially, a big, pasty brodeo sauna session at about 2am when everyone is sloshed. I will post an update when we figure out the venue. Your thoughts?

See you in Helsinki!

Oops, something went wrong. Looks like a hacker somehow got hold of the domain name RubyOnRails.org and slapped a page filled with ads on it. It looks the former owners are aware of the issue and have already started the process to get the domain name back, so this doesn’t appear to be a simple case of forgetting to renew the domain. (Update: as others have pointed out, it probably is and Softmind could simply blowing smoke)

On the other hand, the actual registration date of the domain name (19 April 2004) seems to suggest this would be about the right time for the domain name to expire, so we’re not really sure it’s an actual hack or a simple oversight (it was last updated on 23 April).

We’ll update if and when we know something more.

Update: RubyOnRails creator and 37signals partner David Heinemeier Hansson claims the registration service ‘fucked up again’ and parked the domain name. I’d suggest switching providers.

Why claims of a hack are circulating is still a question mark, we’ll find out soon enough I’m sure.

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