So, this was bound to happen. A company that built itself on top of someone else’s data lost access to it. And sued.
I was sucked into the ploy at first, the whole “Klout but better for the people!” thing. → Read More
So let me get this straight: this year’s “Cyber Monday” (the worst fake holiday name in the history of fake holidays — and names) was a new record day for Amazon when it came to Kindle sales. So was “Black Friday” (at least this one sounds like a plague). Overall, the holidays brought “more than double” the numbers of last year’s record sales.
Great! So what were last year’s… → Read More
Microsoft just launched a full-on offensive campaign for holiday shoppers called “Scroogled.” Yes, it’s what you think it is, it’s an attempt to tell people not to get screwed over by Google this holiday shopping season.
This is a Bing campaign, in case you weren’t sure. It’s pretty strong words, coming from any company. My thing? Don’t call competitors out unless you have the goods to back it… → Read More
19,000 Facebook users have commented on proposed changes to Facebook’s governing documents, enough to trigger a vote on whether they’ll go into effect. Today the Electronic Privacy Information Center asked Mark Zuckerberg to withdraw the proposal to combine user data from Facebook and Instagram, and eliminate the same right to vote that users will assert in a 7-day period starting soon. → Read More
The Microsoft Surface is a great kitchen computer, and sadly, that’s about it. You can tell a lot about a new product by how well you integrate it into your life, and for the Surface, the product has been largely sitting on my kitchen countertop for the past couple of weeks, except for that one time my daughter’s iPad was charging and she wanted to watch Netflix. Or that other time when I carried… → Read More
It’s a curious thing that the most popular devices in the world right now are also, arguably, the best designed. Apple essentially made the Lamborghini of phones ubiquitous, but its lustre is diminishing for several reasons. Among them is the vastly improved ability of small teams to insert themselves into the product creation process. The long tail (and haute couture) is coming to manufacturing. → Read More
Editor’s note: Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive.
No, the Flomio FloJack doesn’t track stolen boats with GPS. In the spirit of the Square credit card reader, the device plugs into the headphone jack of mobile iOS or legacy Android mobile devices to read and write data via NFC. → Read More
Editor’s note: Dr. Michael Wu is the Principal Scientist of Analytics at Lithium where he is currently applying data-driven methodologies to investigate and understand the complex dynamics of the social Web.
The value of any data is only as valuable as the information and insights we can extract from it. It is the information and insights that will help us make better decisions and give… → Read More
Editor’s note: John Hauer is a sales, marketing and technology innovator with a 20+ career of working in print and related industries. He manages a blog which evangelizes 3D printing for traditional 2D printers, and can be found at 3D4printers.com.
I recently read an article on TechCrunch by Jon Evans entitled 3D Printers Are Not Like 2D Printers. While I would agree with the title (obviously… → Read More
Editor’s note: Ray Sobol is founder and CEO of EvidencePix, an enterprise-grade secure MDM service. Ray has more than 25 years experience in launching high-tech ventures and disruptive technologies.
No one likes to pay for things they don’t use. If you’ve ever grappled with the fact that you’re paying for 500 channels on your monthly cable bill when you only use a few, you know what I… → Read More
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of articles by Brad Woodcox that explores the patent system for entrepreneurs. The first examined the basics of the system.
Now that you have background knowledge of the patent system (at least within the U.S.), we can analyze probably the most difficult question: “Should you pursue patents for your company or invention?” → Read More
Editor’s note: Lucas Dailey is the Founder and CEO of political social network Our Ballot Box, a designer, and a local politico. You can follow Lucas on Twitter.
Regardless of your views on our recent election one thing generally agreed upon is that our political system is broken. There are myriad contributors to our malaise–not least of which is the voting system on which it’s all… → Read More
Most of the talk around games tends to focus on climate. It’s about finding the right customers, funding, platform, business model, partnerships, metric and discovery solutions, technology, route to market and so on. However every always says that the first rule of making games is to make sure that the game is fun. Without a fun game there’s no rule two. True, but what does “fun” mean? → Read More
Editor’s note: Chloë Bregman is a product designer working on a new communications startup. Most recently, Chloë designed DrawChat and helped ignite Changemakrs.
“Pretty first” is when a startup focuses on creating a visually beautiful design for its app before determining whether the product has purpose and is useful. It’s the wrong approach. → Read More
Editor’s note: Armando Kirwin is a filmmaker and consultant whose previous work has included Paramount Pictures, Microsoft, several startups, 13 feature films, and a handful of TV shows.
In case you haven’t noticed, wannabe Hollywood analysts, err, I mean tech bloggers the world over are breathlessly opining and propagating news about Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ estimate that Amazon is… → Read More
Long have I hated Microsoft. For decades their bloated mediocrity infuriated every fiber of my being. Like Adam Sandler and leaf-blowers, for a very long time, they represented everything that was wrong with today’s world. But just as Adam Sandler went and made Punch Drunk Love, over the last few years, Microsoft has released a body of work that even I must grudgingly admit is interesting… → Read More
Editor’s Note: Vanessa Clark is the co-founder of Mobiflock, a mobile safety and security company offering parental control services for smartphones and tablets. She is involved in the mobile industry in Africa.
Zimbabwean Tawanda Kembo, 25, has been employed for more than two years but still doesn’t qualify for a credit card. This is the result of banking restrictions on issuing credit… → Read More
“In the Studio” kicks off some special holiday episodes this weekend by hosting a repeat entrepreneur, a product maker and marketer, a technology operator, a venture capitalist, an innovator in the venture model space, and a longtime friend of TechCrunch.
Ron Palmeri, founder of MkII Ventures (pronounced “Mark 2″ Ventures) is one of my favorite kind of entrepreneurs, the type who has throughout… → Read More
Editor’s note: Nate Barker is publisher relations manager and Jamie Evans is advertising account manager at Chartboost.
Here are a few things you need to know to stay calm, cool and collected this holiday season, so you can maximize the effectiveness of your mobile marketing budgets. → Read More
Verizon updated its FiOS Mobile application for iPad, which now streams 75 channels of live TV. Unlike some of the mobile experiences Verizon has released in the past, the new application doesn’t require you to install software on your Mac or PC to act as the intermediary – instead, everything streams directly from the Verizon router in your home. → Read More
The act of “bundling” and the unleashed energy created by “unbundling” are both powerful forces. As consumers, we’ve all been subject to the bundling powers held by companies with unfair regulatory advantages, price collusion, and less competition every time we look over our monthly cell phone bills or cable bills. Years ago, the first software product I worked on was mildly successful… → Read More
Editor’s note: Ansel Halliburton is a lawyer at ComputerLaw Group.
In the summer of 2010, a group called Goatse Security discovered a security hole in an AT&T website catering to users of the recently launched iPad with 3G connectivity. Depending on who you ask, GoatSec is either composed of trolls in it for the lulz or grey-hat hackers. → Read More
There is a kind of memory called a “flashbulb memory,” which is particularly vivid, and forms when something surprising or particularly affecting occurs: JFK, a car accident, or 9/11.
What we call memes are the flashbulb memories of the Internet, and they have emerged because there is a missing piece in the way we share and experience the Internet-based phenomena that are so important to us… → Read More
Editor’s note: Saar Gur is a general partner at Charles River Ventures. Follow him on Twitter @saarsaar.
At Charles River Ventures, we seek to support founders who can build foundational companies in their respective industries, and, in so doing, have a huge impact on the world. Over the last 40 years, 15 funds, 70 IPOs, and 100+ M&A events, we have been fortunate to get to know… → Read More
Editor’s note: Tadhg Kelly is a game designer with 20 years experience.
There are plenty of people in and around games who make their living largely through behaving like wizards. Nowhere is this more true than in the field of gamification. Is a site an opportunity to engage with a user through a journey? Is a reward a way of maintaining a complex conversation with your users? → Read More
Editor’s note: Neil Florio is responsible for global marketing strategies and demand generation programs for Fiberlink’s MaaS360 product.
It seems we are living in an Android-dominated world, as the leading mobile open-source OS owns 60 percent of the consumer mobile device market. However, as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) gains rapid momentum, the same cannot be said of the enterprise space. → Read More
Editor’s note: Jay Jamison is a Partner at BlueRun Ventures and is based in Menlo Park.
Wall Street is basically demanding big public tech companies to answer the question, “How mobile can you go?” And based on a read of the big tech companies’ recent Q3 earnings reports, they all got the memo. Here’s my take on their mobile strategies. → Read More
Editor’s note: John Frankel is founder and partner of ff Venture Capital and has been an early-stage venture investor since 1999. Follow him on Twitter.
Having spoken with many limited partners, it is clear that there is a lack of access to the research out there that compares return generation from different venture classes and, in particular, compares angel returns with those of venture… → Read More
Two years ago I wrote a post entitled “Can Anything Stop The Facebook Juggernaut?” in which I marvelled at the fact that Facebook was then worth a whopping $35 billion, according to Second Market. Today, after its much-touted stock price “collapse,” the company is worth roughly $51 billion. It’s a strange world when a market-value increase of $16 billion/~45 percent over a two-year period is… → Read More
Editor’s note: Jon Bischke is a founder of Entelo and is an advisor to several startups. You can follow Jon on Twitter.
Entrepreneurs built America. And while we celebrate pro athletes and entertainers and have Boss’s Day and Secretary’s Day, there has never been a day set aside to celebrate entrepreneurship. → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards
San Francisco
New York City
