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Posts Tagged ‘zappos’

Amazon earlier this morning announced the official closing of the acquisition of Zappos, a deal which we broke the news about back in July. Turns out the valuation of the online footwear and clothing retailer went up from the reported $928 million over the past few months too – thank you, stock market – and Zappos turns out to have been deemed worth a solid $1.2 billion by Jeff Bezos & co based on Friday’s closing price of $117.4 a share.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh writes in a public letter:

We’ve been spending the past few months obtaining all the proper government approvals, and I’m happy to say that we officially closed the deal at the split second between Halloween (10/31/09) and All Saints’ Day (11/1/09). From a practical point of view, we’ve switched out our previous board of directors with a new management committee that is composed of people from Zappos as well as Amazon.

Our investors and other shareholders exchanged their Zappos.com shares for approximately 10 million Amazon.com shares. Given the closing price on Friday, 10/30/09, for Amazon stock, those shares were valued at approximately $1.2 billion at the time of close.

As expected, the Zappos management team will remain intact and the company will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary with headquarters in Las Vegas, NV.

I’ve embedded a chart showing Amazon’s stock price evolution since the announcement of the acquisition was first made at the end of July up until now. The significant jump noticeable on the right is from when the company announced solid third-quarter earnings.

It made an estimated $272 million difference for Zappos this weekend.

And how was your Halloween?

(Via @Zappos)

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User generated content has been the rage for quite some time now, but there have been few sites that nail the process of getting users to create quality content on the web. Launching today is TechnoBuffalo, a new site that is aiming to bring user generated content to a new level of sophistication. TechnoBuffalo features original tech content, a social network, and tools to build and monetize your own tech blog.

TechnoBuffalo is built on a customized version of WordPress Multi-User. TechnoBuffalo gives users the option to create their own blog with a custom URL (TechnoBuffalo.com/username) complete with full WordPress content management. Users can add writers, and customize the layout of their tech blogs. Users then have the option to manage their own advertising, or have TechnoBuffalo supply advertising on the site.

To encourage users to create sub blogs, TechnoBuffalo offers a full library of training videos that teach them how to effectively run a tech blog. Videos include tutorials on how to find items to review, how to act confident in front of a camera, and more. If videos and content is good, TechnoBuffalo will feature the content on the home page.

TechnoBuffalo is monetized through advertising. It was started earlier this year by two journalists; Jon Rettinger and Brandon Miniman. Both Rettinger and Miniman have a strong YouTube presence, and have a high number of subscribers to their channels.

Besides offering the blogging network, TechnoBuffalo also adds a social network on top called BuffaloNet. BuffaloNet allows users to talk, make friends, groups, and send messages within the tech space. And unlike other social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace which ask for private information when registering, TechnoBuffalo does not require much of that.

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Startup PBWorks, which was formally known as PBwiki, specializes in helping businesses, non-profits, and educational institutions collaborate via wikis. The startup has steadily added innovative, real-time features to its platform, most recently integrating Twitter-like microblogging.

Today, PBworks is entering the stream by adding real-time functionality and voice collaboration within the application. PBWorks is adding four new features to its suite:

Instant Messaging

The startup is adding IM functionality to the application, which looks and operates just like Gchat. The platform allows PBWorks users in their organization to send them instant messages from within the product. Users can also request for co-workers to look at the workspace page they’re working on using the “send a link” function built into the IM system.

Live Notifications

Similar to notifications in a Facebook stream, PBWorks is adding Live Notifications alerts, which lets users know the different activity within their organization in real-time. Users can select which notifications they want to receive, based on their preferences (known as “starring” or “following” particular pages), and the system will stream relevant notifications to whatever page a user is viewing. The notifications provide a link to whatever the employee is working on.

Live Editing

PBWorks is now upgrading its collaboration features by adding a the ability for users to share a PBworks editing session. So whenever a user is editing a workspace page, other users viewing that page see the edits appear in real-time as well as participate in edits.

Voice Collaboration

Conference calls are a daily part of any business’s day-to-day operations and PBWorks is now allowing this to take place within its application. Users can initiate an instant conference call by dialing several participants at the same time. Each conference call is recorded and stored for later review, which is an extremely useful feature. Voice Collaboration can even be triggered via PBWorks using an iPhone.

PBworks, which had an overhaul of its user interface and features last year, offers businesses with a project management application and a customized wiki workspace, with mobile support, document management, access controls and more. The incorporation of real-time functionality as a natural extension of PBWorks makes the platform a whole lot more attractive, as more and more enterprise-focused startups are adding real-time features to applications. So if a user is editing a page and realizes that he or she needs the input of other team members, the user can request fellow employees to join the appropriate page using IM Collaboration, start a Live Editing session, and use Voice Collaboration to initiate an instant conference call.

Currently, PBworks manages 50,000 wiki groups with over 3 million users and has accumulated a loyal client base. The company serves teams at over a third of the Fortune 500, and was home to three presidential campaigns, the United Nations, The Financial Times and Harvard University.

Like Salesforce, PBworks is a paid subscription service, with no advertising. The company has raised nearly $2.5 million in funding, with its most recent funding round of $2.1 million announced in 2007. Competitors include Microsoft Sharepoint, Jive, and Socialtext.

And of course, we can draw comparisons to Google Wave, Google’s much-hyped new collaboration platform.

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OpenX this morning announced it has entered into a multi-year partnership with Microsoft that will allow the companies to “cross-market and promote products” to their respective publishers.

Under the agreement, Pasadena-based OpenX becomes a preferred partner to publishers for enterprise ad serving solutions and has agreed to promote Microsoft’s Content Ads monetization products and eventual future products to its own roster of web publisher customers.

OpenX said that publishers usings its recently launched OpenX Market and Ad Server products will be able to use MS’s Content Ads, and that the Redmond software giant will refer potential customers to OpenX.

Financial details of the advertising tech partnership, which has been in trial since August 2008, were not disclosed. Microsoft’s director of advertising business development Peter MacDonald did tell Reuters there will be the opportunity for both companies to make money in the deal.

OpenX, interestingly based on open-source ad-serving tech, claims it works with more than 150,000 independent sites that collectively serve more than 300 billion ad impressions a month. The company – formerly known as Openads – is led by former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller (Chairman) and ex-Yahoo exec Tim Cadogan (CEO). The company’s backed by over $30 million in funding, most recently having raised $10 million from a host of venture capital firms.

OpenX competes with companies like Google (which owns DoubleClick) and, notably, Microsoft because of its own aQuantive product.

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Social shopping is a nut that no one has been able to crack. The idea sounds good; people enjoy shopping together in malls and such. But online, there have been many attempts, and many failures. Plurchase, a Y Combinator-backed company, is the latest to take on the task.

Obviously, Plurchase thinks it has what it takes to succeed in the space with a new method of doing things. In the past, social shopping sites have either required you to have a browser plug-in to converse with friends while on shopping sites, or they have been entirely new sites that everyone had to go to. Plurchase simply offers a social overlay to the sites you already use, and makes it easy to invite friends to join you.

Say you want to shop for something on Zappos, you visit Plurchase’s site then hit the button to take you to Zappos. You will see the Zappos site just as you normally would, but with the addition of a Plurchase panel on the right hand side of your web browser. On this panel you will see your buddy list of other Plurchase users, which includes what sites they are currently shopping on. There’s also a link to invite other friends to join you in shopping with Plurchase via email. And below that is a chat area to talk to your online friends as you shop.

If you find an item you like while shopping and want to show a friend, you can bookmark the item and leave a comment. You can also note whether you “like” it, “dislike” it, or note that it’s “cool.” Your friends can do this as well. Anytime you bookmark an item, it shows up in the chat area with a link, so your online friends will see it and can see what you’re looking at.

And if you hook up Plurchase through Facebook Connect, you can also ask you Facebook friends what they think about items by sending them to your Facebook page.

One interesting thing about Plurchase is that although the site just has Zappos, Amazon, and Craigslist integration right now, the plan is to eventually roll it out to all the big online retailers. And when that happens, you will be able to chat with friends while you’re shopping at Zappos even if they’re shopping somewhere else, like Amazon.

“Plurchase requires no download/install/plugin for users, and no sign-up. There’s zero integration work required by the merchants. Plurchase uses some clever technology. We use a custom proxy server to ‘wrap’ our functionality around the retailer site, and that includes proxifying their JavaScript and Flash code,” co-founder Tom Saffell tells us.

The core idea behind Plurchase is that while online retailers are great at selling items, creating their own social integration won’t work well because it is limited to just that one site. “We see Plurchase as part of a broader trend: the distribution of social features across all types of websites,” Saffell notes. He’s written more about that idea here.

The plan is to extend Plurchase’s social feature to include Twitter integration soon as well, we’re told.

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A video took the web by storm today entitled “Incredible, amazing, awesome Apple.” Basically, it boils down Apple’s latest event into a series of superlatives. It’s a funny video because Apple really does have a pattern of using these types of words over and over again in its demonstrations. Cynics will say this is how Apple brainwashes the masses into buying their products, and gets people jazzed about the tiniest features. But I think there’s something much deeper here.

While certainly there is some element of hearing something so many times that you start to believe it, that’s nothing new, any good salesman will do the same thing. But why I think the tactic works so well with Apple is because they actually believe what they’re saying. Just watch Steve Jobs in that video. It sure seems like he’s damn sure that what he’s talking about is amazing. He’s excited about it. So is Phil Schiller and the others on the Apple team. And that excitement translates on a level unseen.

You’ve undoubtedly seen used car commercials where the used car salesman uses superlatives as well to the nth degree. But the difference is that he’s not genuine. Do you think he loves the junky cars he’s trying to pass off to you? No. Contrast that with Jobs. Do you believe that he loves the Apple products he’s trying to pass off to you? Yes.

This is hardly an Apple-only phenomenon. They’re just one of the best at translating their enthusiasm on a big stage several times a year thanks mainly to the charismatic Jobs. But really, I think you’ll find in most successful companies, the enthusiasm about their product is a key to how well that product is doing.

Another good example is Twitter. I’ve had to opportunity to meet a lot of Twitter employees over the past few years. One thing I noticed about each of them is their passion and excitement for what they’re doing. Certainly, if you look at it from the outside, the concept of Twitter was something that was just as likely to be a complete failure as it was a success. But the people running it and even the newest employees have a passion about it. When co-founder Biz Stone says he thinks Twitter can change the world, it may sound crazy, but it’s not, because he believes it.

Speaking of the newest employees, Twitter’s new COO, Dick Costolo, just started at the company recently. During TechCrunch50, he was asked on stage why he joined Twitter. After all, he had sold his previous company, FeedBurner, to Google for $100 million, and upon leaving Google, he probably never needed to work again. But his response is telling, “My first reaction was, you don’t get a chance to work on potentially one of the pivotal companies.”

He’s not going to work at Twitter for the paycheck, he’s going to work there because he believes in what they are doing. And that enthusiasm can only further the company.

This type of enthusiasm also seems to be prevalent at companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Zappos (which was of course recently acquired by Amazon). And not surprisingly, people seem to love working at those companies.

For a long time, Google was in that realm too. To some extent, it still is, but as it gets bigger and bigger, there seems to be no shortage of people who leave, discontent. Google is still making great products, but whenever you have talent leaving, for whatever reason, that’s not a great sign. Maybe Google can overcome that, but you simply can’t discount the recent talk about a possible Google decline.

Not to single out Yahoo, but they are one company where employee enthusiasm has seemed waning in recent years, to say the least. It’s hard to know if that started before or after the great products stopped and it fell into decline, but it’s a serious problem, nonetheless. That’s not to say no one is enthusiastic about being there, but I do get the feeling that plenty are there simply to get a paycheck. And a company will never win that way.

Microsoft is more of a mixed bag. There are plenty at the company who love it passionately. Most notable of these is of course, CEO Steve Ballmer. While I don’t believe he’s being disingenuous with his Microsoft zealotry, I know that his passion is not shared by everyone at the company. And I believe that translates one way or another to the public (be it by sub-par products, or other less tangible means). And to some extent, that may be why we don’t see the same type of “fanboy” fervor that a company like Apple gets.

But you’ll notice a common theme among the last three examples: They’re all huge companies. It’s undoubtedly very hard to keep everyone happy and on the same page about the products as you grow in size. That’s really why Steve Jobs is more important to Apple than doing any tangible work he may be doing. He is the glue that seems to make enthusiasm stick at the large company. When he wasn’t there in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, things went downhill, and undoubtedly the enthusiasm went downhill.

It was interesting talking to startups at TechCrunch50 this past week. A lot of them seemed to have the passion for what they were doing, and that was great to see. But I’m not sure that all of them did, and I have no doubt that those companies are going to be much more prone to failure.

My point is an obvious one, but I think it’s often overlooked. Enthusiasm and passion are so important, no matter what you do. If you don’t feel like you have that towards the company you are with, you should seriously consider leaving. Of course, there is something to be said about a paycheck, especially in tough economic times, but if you have the means and are simply spinning your wheels doing something that you don’t believe in, you’re really not helping anyone, and especially not yourself.

And you’re not helping us, the public, either, because if you’re not enthusiastic about something, we’re certainly not going to be.

Better yet, if you have the power in your company to start something that you are passionate about, do it. Even if it’s something that seems silly, like say, Twitter (which of course, started as a side project at Odeo), your enthusiasm about it just may push it through. And it may slowly bubble up into something bigger. And it may just blow up into the next big thing. Because enthusiasm translates.

[photo: flickr/acaben]

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As more and more businesses dip their toes in the Twitter stream, there’s a need for enterprise-focused Twitter applications that cater to businesses’ needs from the microblogging platform. TechCrunch50 demopit company TweetFunnel is business-friendly publishing platform for Twitter.

The web-based application is both a Twitter client and a platform for businesses to manage all their Twitter accounts. TweetFunnel lets you aggregate and use multiple Twitter accounts, and also makes it easy for several employees to post to one Twitter account. Users can also schedule, monitor and assign posting of Tweets within the platform. And TweetFunnel offers Bit.ly link analytics within its platform.

TweetFunnel breaks down users into three different categories—administrators, publishers and contributors. The administrator has permissions to add users to the account and to review and publish tweets. Publishers also have the ability to review and publish tweets and contributors can add tweets to the review queue, but cannot publish tweets.

The platform is appealing and has a number of compelling features for businesses, including the ability to time and assign Tweets. Of course, TweetFunnel will face competition from the growing number of clients and services that provide variations of enterprise-friendly Twitter clients, including PeopleBrowsr, ViralHeat, and Socialseek.

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To all those startups who made it to TechCrunch50 this year, whether it was on stage or in the DemoPit, congratulations and thank you. We wouldn’t be here if there weren’t so many creative entrepreneurs out there trying to build something worthwhile out of nothing but ideas, sweat, and a little risk capital. A little risk can go a long why. And while it is true that this year’s crop brought fewer wild ideas than in the past, it is also true that by and large there were a lot more solid ideas as well.

One of the best things about TechCrunch50 is not what happens on stage, but what happens before companies even get there. Startups that don’t even have a working demo or a product are forced to build one just to be considered. So many startup founders at TechCrunch50, even those who don’t make it to the final 50, have told me how valuable this selection process is. There is nothing like a deadline to focus your ideas. And once you are there, the dealmaking in the DemoPit was intense.

Over the course of the two-day conference, we covered all 50 finalist demos, put up more than a dozen video interviews, and reported announcements made at TC50 from Bing, Facebook, Google, AOL, and MySpace. Even the TC50 winner from two years ago, Mint, had its own little announcement. If you weren’t one of the nearly 2,000 people in attendance, perhaps you were one of the 97,855 unique viewers who caught some of the presentations streamed live on video.

The video was shot and uploaded by the team at Ustream, who also were able to cut and upload archived video clips for each presentation within an hour of each one. Those video clips are embedded at the bottom of each post and is probably the best way to relive the experience.

There was so much happening at the conference, even if you were there you missed half of it. Below is a handy list of links to all of our TC50 coverage, including every company demo, announcement, backstage interview, and commentary. There is also an extensive list of links to other coverage (if we are missing something, let us know) and, at the very bottom, to Crunchbase profiles of each of the 50 finalists.

TC50 Winner:
RedBeacon

TC50 Finalists:
Threadsy
AnyClip
CitySourced

Best Presentation:
iMo

Best International Company:
Trollim

Microsoft BizSpark Award Winner:
AnyClip

Demopit Winners:
oDesk
YourVersion
Socialwok
Chyngle

The TC50 Video:
The TC50 Video

Photos:
Flickr Stream

TC50 Companies in Order of Appearance:
Penn and Teller
StorySomething
Clasemovil
ToonsTunes
SealTale
iTwin
FluidHTML
ToyBots
Spawn Labs
Clicker
5:1
DataXu
SeatGeek
HealthyWage
Rackup
Udorse
iMo
RedBeacon
Yext
LocalBacon
Refmob
TheSwop
Mota Motors
oDesk
YourVersion
ClientShow
Metricly
Affective Interfaces
CitySourced
Trollim
CrowdFlower
Cocodot
LearnVest
BreakThrough
Glide Health
Sprowtt
Thoora
Insttant
Perpetually
AnyClip
CrowdFusion
Hark!
Threadsy
lissn
Radiusly
Stribe
Clixtr
The Whuffie Bank
Socialwok
Chyngle

Interviews:
Penn and Teller
Ron Conway
Jason Hirschhorn
Jim Lanzone
Ross Levinsohn
Marissa Mayer
Marc Andreessen
Paul Graham
Tony Hsieh
CitySourced
Kevin Rose
Bradley Horowitz
Tim O’Reilly
Dick Costolo
Dick Costolo (again)
Reid Hoffman

Panels:
Advertising

Commentary:
TechCrunch Drinking Game
American Flag
Is Toybots Dreaming Big Enough?
Memo To Start-ups: You’re Supposed To Be Changing the World, Remember?
Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Europa

Announcements:
Facebook Prototypes
Facebook
AIM
Google Fast Flip
Bing Visual Search
MySpace Has Built Its Own Recommendation Engine, And They’re Open-Sourcing It
Mint Acquired by Intuit

Other Coverage:
The TechCrunch50 List: the presenting startups VentureBeat.
Pitch Glut: 220 Web Startups Launch in Two Weeks ReadWriteStart.
A Sundance for Startups The Huffington Post.
Round Up of this Morning’s Startup Presentations at TC50: Session 1: Youth & Games (Updating) TheNextWeb.
Techcrunch 50 2009 Coverage Silicon Angle.
TechCrunch50 kicks off: Let the games begin CNET
TechCrunch50: The iPhone as a Game Controller? AppScout.
New hardware at TechCrunch50CNET.
Startups Aim to Bring Personalization Back in Style GigaOM.
TechCrunch 50: Our Favorites So Far Business Insider.
Favorite Startups from TechCrunch50 Conference PC World.

TC50: With Penn & Teller, your iPhone does card tricks too VentureBeat.
Penn and Teller Unveil New iPhone Application #tc50 Techgeist
TechCrunch50: Penn and Teller, the iPhone app LA Times.
TC50: Story Something creates personal stories for your children VentureBeat.
Story Something cria histórias de dormir para o seu filho TC50 Jornal tecnologia.
TC50: ClaseMovil launches a virtual world for learning VentureBeat.
Quick thoughts from TC 50: ToonsTunes Startup Marketing Blog.
TC50: ToonsTunes is like GarageBand for kids Venture Beat.
ToonsTunes Launches at TechCrunch50. SheBlogs.
ToonsTunes Launches World’s First Virtual Community Offering an Online Recording… Reuters.
ToonsTunes – Tunes For Tots #tc50Techgeist.
TC50: Sealtale offers a personalized way to declare brand loyalty Venture Beat.
SealTale – New Widgets For Your Blog (?) #tc50 techgeist.
Microsoft launches Bing ‘Visual Search’ CNET.
Microsoft’s next attack on Google: Bing gets visual search VentureBeat.
Bing Tries More Pictures, Less Text Silicon Alley Insider.
Microsoft’s Bing Introduces Visual Search Feature paidContent.
Making Search Prettier: Bing Launches Visual Search ReadWriteWeb.
Microsoft Updates Bing with ‘Visual Search’ FeaturePC World.
Microsoft Bing Adds Visual Search Option Bits NYTimes.
Bing: Now With Visual Search Digital Daily.
Meet an Awesome Search Engine for iPhone Apps – Bing Digital Inspiration.
Bing Search Gets Visual Technologizer.
Hands on: Bing gains Silverlight-only Visual Search feature Ars Technica.
Microsoft Bing Adds Picture Searches for Some Queries Bloomberg.
Microsoft Bing gets visual search; full 2.0 update later this fall All About Microsoft.
Microsoft Adds Visual Search to Bing PC Magazine.
Bing’s new visual search tools are both stupid and cool Daily Finance.
Bing 2.0 “Visual Search” Launches, Allows Search By Pictures Search Engine Land.
Is Bing Optimizing for the Short Snout? The Noisy Channel.
Microsoft announces Bing Visual Search MobileTechWorld.
Bing Goes the Visual Internet AppScout.
Visual Search – Why type when you can see it? Bing Blog.
Microsoft Bing Visual Search Option Helps Us Become Lazier Searchers Google Watch.
Bing encourages visual search Computer World.
Google Leads in Search Engine Quality Test, But Bing ImpresseseWeek.
Bing 2? Microsoft Debuts Visual Search Engine internetnews.com
TC50: iTwin allows encrypted, cableless file-sharing VentureBeat.
TC50: FluidHtml builds a more web-friendly version of Flash VentureBeat.
FluidHTML seeks to bridge Web programming divide CNET.
TC50: Toybots lets toys come to life with Internet connectivity VentureBeat.
ToyBots – Connected Toys Of Some Sort #TC50 Techgeist.
Quick Thoughts from TC50: ToyBots Startup Marketing Blog.
TC50: Clicker is a TV guide for the Internet age VentureBeat.
Clicker Guides You To Internet TV #TC50 Techgeist.
Clicker’s Guide to Online Video Technologizer.
Stealth Report: TV / Video search engine Clicker AltSearchEngines.
Former Ask.com CEO Lanzone Launches Video Search Engine paidContent.
TC50: 5to1 gives publishers more control over their ads VentureBeat.
TC50: DataXu optimizes ad campaigns in real-time VentureBeat.
TC50: SeatGeek tells you when to buy tickets VentureBeat.
TC50: HealthyWage lets companies incentivize employees to stay fit VentureBeat.
TC50: RackUp sells gift cards in fast online auctions VentureBeat.
TC50: Udorse lets you tag your photos with product endorsements VentureBeat.
TC50: iMo turns the iPhone into a joystick for your PC games VentureBeat.
TC50: Need someone to mow your lawn? Redbeacon creates a market for local services. VentureBeat.
TC50: Yext transcribes, searches phone calls for local businesses VentureBeat.
Google News 2.0: Fast Flip Screenwerk.
Google Tries to Enhance News Browsing With Fast Flip PC World.
Google launches Fast Flip news website Telegraph.
Google unveils Fast Flip for newspapers and magazines LA Times.
Google turns a new page in online news content Times Online.
Google Launches Fast Flip To Accelerate News Browsing Information Week.
Google’s Fast Flip Trick Reuters.
Google lets readers “flip” through the news USA Today.
Google’s Fast Flip Dips Publishers’ Toes in Google’s Own Ad Revenues Content Bridge.
Breaking: Google FastFlip Web Search Android Guys.
Google hopes readers will ‘flip’ over new format SeattlePI.
Google Releases News-Reading Service New York Times.
Google Fast Flip Goes Live; Experiment In News Reading And Revenue Sharing paidContent.
Google Fast Flip: Reading Online a Bit More Like Print Businessweek.
TC50: Mota wants to curb “lemons,” fix the used car market VentureBeat.
TC50: Startups can trade favors at TheSwop.com VentureBeat.
iMo Is Great For Games, IMO#tc50 techgeist.
TechCrunch50: Show me the money CNET.
TechCrunch50: Click on Me! Click on Me! Or: Better Ads AppScout.
The Top 3 personal finance startups from TechCrunch 50 WalletPop.
TechCrunch50: Businesses that match you up CNET.
TechCrunch50: Next-Gen Classified Ads PCMag.
Startups Aim to Bring Personalization Back in Style GigaOM.
Mota Motors Launches Services Socaltech.com
RefMob Launches at TC50 to Revolutionize Word-of-Mouth Referral Programs” eMediaWire.
TC50: Refmob gives customers a slice of the referral market VentureBeat.
Redbeacon Launches At TechCrunch50 Reuters.
TC50: Localbacon wants to fix job sites by making job-seekers pay VentureBeat.
Yext(TM) Launches First Ever Pay-Per-Action Phone Call Service at TechCrunch50 Reuters.
Yext launches Yext Calls service at TechCrunch50 TelecomPaper.
TC50: Metricly aggregates analytics for startups, small businesses VentureBeat.
TC50: ClientShow manages collaboration for graphic designers VentureBeat.
TC50: Affective Interfaces detects whether your ad makes people happy VentureBeat.
TechCrunch50: Business Apps on Parade (and Emotion Sensing!) AppScout.
TC50: CrowdFlower offers rich analytics for mechanical turks VentureBeat.
TC50: CitySourced Lets You Report Pot Holes And Graffiti On The Go Facternet.
Demos and Dreams at TechCrunch50 Day 2 Change.org
City Sourced Allows Mobile Complaint Reporting IntoMobile.
I’d Call CitySourced, but I’m Just a Pothole bub.blicio.us.
City Sourced – A New Way To Inform City Hall #tc50 techgeist.
Citizen complaint app finally fires up TechCrunch50 CNET.
TC50: CrowdFlower offers rich analytics for mechanical turks caem.la.
AOL embraces Twitter, Facebook with AIM Lifestream CNET.
AOL Integrates LifeStream into AIM AppScout.
TC50: AIM opens up; pegs its future on mobile apps VentureBeat.
Cocodot – For Overdoing Invitations #tc50 techgeist.
Cocodot creates a slicker version of Evite VentureBeat.
Trollim throws programming gauntlet SDTimes.
TC50: LearnVest walks users through life’s financial milestones VentureBeat.
AIM Debuts Lifestream Twitter Client ReadWriteWeb.
TechCrunch50: A ‘Elegant’ Evite and More Subscription Services AppScout.
CrowdFlower Bolsters a New Era of Work PR Web.
CitySourced Launches At TechCrunch50 YouVox Tech.
Techcrunch 50: Glide Health Geekfluence.
What Women Want: Startups Targeting Females
ReadWriteWeb.
TechCrunch50: How to pitch to women in a room full of dudes PHP Hosts.
Affective Interfaces’ Webcam Software Reads Emotions Gizmodo.
IPhones Take on Potholes With City Reporting Tool PCWorld.
TC50: Does the world need another news aggregator? Thoora thinks it does VentureBeat.
IPhones Take on Potholes with City Reporting Tool CIO.
TC50: AnyClip searches movies for quotes, famous moments VentureBeat.
TC50:Perpetually creates a personalized Internet archive VentureBeat.
TC50: Insttant provides a snapshot of real-time news VentureBeat.
TechCrunch50: Aggregating News, Even Way In the Past AppScout.
TC50: Crowd Fusion wants to be the ultimate tool for web publishing VentureBeat.
Insttant.com – Real Time People Generated News at TechCrunch50 YouVox.
TechCrunch50: Women get short shrift LA Times.
TechCrunch50: The Better Social Network AppScout.
TC50: Lissn is like Twitter for longer, public conversations VentureBeat.
Apps for business at TechCrunch50 CNET.
TeleMedicine, Mood-Measuring, Citizen Complaints Vie for Net Fame
Wired.
TechCrunch50: Business Apps on Parade PC Mag.
AIM Bets on Social Networks as Startups Reveal a New Spin on Metrics GigaOM.
O’Brien: Real-time Web is Silicon Valley’s new obsession SJ Mercury News.
TC50: Radiusly says companies should forget Twitter, microblog with us instead VentureBeat.
Threadsy: All Your Communications, All in One Place Technologizer.
Startups Attempt to Lasso the Real-time Web GigaOM.
Connected communities matter: Introducing Stribe Stribe.
TechCrunch50: Real-time stream is more like a flash flood CNET.

Crunchbase Profiles:
5:1

Affective Interfaces

AnyClip

BreakThrough

CitySourced

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Sprowtt

StorySomething

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Threadsy

ToonsTunes

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If you’ve got a company and you want a big acquisition in a year or two, you may want to consider hiring Alfred Lin, currently the COO/CFO of just-acquired Zappos. Every company he’s worked for has been acquired, and the smallest deal was $265 million.

Lin dropped out of a PhD program at Stanford to join LinkExchange in 1996 as acting CFO. Two years later the company was acquired by Microsoft for $265 million in stock. He then cofounded Venture Frogs, a $27 million venture fund, with college buddy Tony Hsieh. Investments included Zappos, TellMe, OpenTable, MyAble, Mongo Music and Ask Jeeves, all of which have been acquired or went public.

Lin then joined TellMe in 2001 as VP Finance and Business Development. At the time he joined the company was losing $60 million per year, he tells me. Microsoft bought the company for $800 million in 2007.

Then he really outdid himself. He joined Zappos, reuniting with his old friend Hsieh, in 2006 as COO and CFO. How’d they do? Yeah, they were acquired last week by Amazon for close to $1 billion.

I don’t know if Lin is the master operator (his former colleagues and venture capitalists all say glowing things) or if he’s just really, really good at picking winners. But one thing is clear - this guy has the Midas Touch. I highly recommend interviewing at whatever company he ends up at next. It’s likely to be a big winner.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Google is finally figuring out that short links are just easier to deal with, especially on a mobile phone. No, it is not rolling out its own URL shortening service just yet (bit.ly, stand down). But today it is introducing what it calls “smart links” to the mobile version of Gmail.

When it recognizes a super-long link like the one for Google Maps shown above right, it will shorten it to the underlying name thing being linked to. In this case, it is an address (below right)

Basically, it translates the URL into English. Gmail’s smart links also work for direction destinations on Google Maps, and the names of YouTube videos and Google Sites pages. It is starting with Google-owned properties, where it knows the underlying names. But it doesn’t need to be limited to those.

It seems like a good idea and one which could be expanded to other links across the Web, including news headlines, image titles, Tweets, and countless other things. I kind of wish I could enable this feature in regular Gmail as well.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0