The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- The Filter Reboots As Recommendation Engine For Hire, Ex-Googler Doug Merrill Joins Board
- Monday Morning Marketing Quarterback: Which Superbowl Ads Scored On The Web?
- Social Music Player TuneWiki Raises Funding From Motorola Ventures, Others
- Oracle Buys AmberPoint To Boost Application Management And Performance Offerings
- Vitamin D Video Surveillance System Sheds Beta Tag, Announces Pricing
- Loopt Partners With Mobile Spinach To Offer Location-Based Deals
- Poland’s ‘Facebook’ Is Up For Grabs In A Central European Roll-Up
- Investment Group Backed By Google, Disney To Buy Into Chinese Bus Media Firm
- Trackle Goes Pro; Launches Premium Version Of Realtime Tracking Alerts
- AMEE Gets $5.5m Series B To Go Global With Realtime Carbon Engine
| The Filter Reboots As Recommendation Engine For Hire, Ex-Googler Doug Merrill Joins Board Posted: 08 Feb 2010 08:53 AM PST Almost two years ago The Filter, a startup backed by Peter Gabriel, launched to bring better music and movie recommendations to consumers. The site got lost in the abundance of more popular music and movie sites out there, so about a year ago CEO David Maher Roberts decided to shift gears and start licensing his recommendation engine to other businesses. It was the right move. Today, the Filter powers recommendations for sites and devices with a combined reach of about 20 million people, with two more large media deals in the final stages of converting from a trail to a full license which will bring its total reach up to 85 million. The startup’s revenues went from $150,000 in 2008 to about $1 million in 2009. “All that money came from licensing,” says Roberts. “I think we git $2,000 from Google for advertising.” Since November, the company has been “borderline breakeven.” And it just added to its board of directors former Google engineering VP Doug Merrill, who left Google to briefly serve as president of EMI for a year. “Recommendations—from friends, from newspapers, from colleagues—are the most common way to find new content,” says Merrill. “However, there is more information available than there are people to recommend. The Filter analyzes data to provide measurably better, more relevant recommendations, automatically.” The Filter creates personalized music and movie feeds based on user’s activities (rating. listening, saving, sharing) as well as their preferences in other accounts such as iTunes and Last.fm. Roberts claims that in trials, customers have seen a 20 to 40 percent lift in media consumption (video views, dwell time) than using their own recommendation algorithms. Not counting those two big media deals in the wings, the Filter’s recommendation technology is currently being used by Nokia Music, Sony’s MyPlay, DVDPost (a European Netflix), ThePlatform, and We7 (another music site also backed by Gabriel). The Filter’s own site is still growing steadily, if slowly, with about 800,000 unique visitors per month. “It was a much slower process than we had wished,” says Maher. People liked the technology, he says, but they wanted it on sites where they already consume content. The Filter’s experience shows how tough it is to build a standalone music or movie property. But if its recommendation algorithms really do provide the kind of improvements Roberts claims, more sites will adopt it. You can try out its relevance engine for yourself on The Filter website.      
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| Monday Morning Marketing Quarterback: Which Superbowl Ads Scored On The Web? Posted: 08 Feb 2010 08:31 AM PST With the Super Bowl yesterday came the time-honored Super Bowl commercials, each costing $2.5 million for a 30-second spot. Even Google got in on the game with its first ever spot receiving rave reviews (although the commercial wasn’t new). But which commercials went beyond TV to score on the Web? Reprise Media released a report that ranks Super Bowl advertisers based on the level of integration between their television commercials and presence on the web in terms of search and social media. According to Reprise’s scorecard, Boost Mobile, Home Away, E*Trade and Google were the marketing standouts out of last night’s commercials. Reprise decreed that Boost Mobile and Home Away, which were both first-time Super Bowl advertisers, had the best cross-channel promotion from the tube to the web. E*Trade and Google followed with compelling ad spots that encouraged users to look to the web for more information. Who fumbled? The Pop Secret/Emerald Nuts, Prudential, Dodge Charger and all movie commercials had the least amount of cross-channel integration. Interestingly, Turbo Tax, Mazda and Pepsi didn't have ads in the Super Bowl but they attracted traffic online by running paid search ads on keywords related to other Super Bowl advertisers. Unsurprisingly, millions of consumers turned to social networks including Twitter to discuss their favorite ads. According to social media monitoring service Trendrr, the four top gaining Super Bowl ad brands on Twitter within the last 24 hours were Dockers (+307%), Boost Mobile (+161%), Emerald Nuts (+150) and Disney's Alice in Wonderland (+120%). Out of all of the car commercials, Audi’s A3 Green Police advertisement received the most buzz on Trendrr. But was that because it was humorous (showing people getting arrested for using foam cups and incandescent bulbs) or too smug? Social media measurement company Radian 6 and ad agency Mullen have released stats on which brand was most effective according to sentiment and volume of Tweets on Twitter. The report says that Doritos was the most effective brand to advertise on the Super Bowl telecast on CBS this year. Budweiser Select55 was the least effective brand. And Google and Focus on the Family followed Doritos is becoming the most discussed commercials on Twitter. Of course, it should be noted that Doritos had several commercials in the Super Bowl, which could have contributed to the volume of tweets. On the other hand, Google had a higher percentage of positive tweets.      
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| Social Music Player TuneWiki Raises Funding From Motorola Ventures, Others Posted: 08 Feb 2010 07:22 AM PST
Update: The Marker (in Hebrew) says the investment totals $7 million. TuneWiki says it will use the investment to expand its product offerings for mobile platforms and the Web. The company will continue to focus on the use of song lyrics in new ways that connect music fans with new products, including an upcoming mobile game. TuneWiki boasts apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Nokia handsets. This is the second funding announcement for Motorola’s venture arm in a week – on Feb 2 the investor announced that it had injected extra capital into mobile barcode company Scanbuy.      
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| Oracle Buys AmberPoint To Boost Application Management And Performance Offerings Posted: 08 Feb 2010 05:36 AM PST On the heels of the EU’s approval of Oracle’s $7.4 billion deal to acquire Sun Microsystems, the tech giant has opened up the purse strings to acquire application management software provider AmberPoint. Terms of the deal were not disclosed and the acquisition is expected to close in the first half of this year. AmberPoint’s software helps organizations diagnose and resolve issues in application performance and business transactions, such as insurance claims processing or account provisioning where multiple applications need to work together. AmberPoint’s software will be folded into Oracle’s Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) offerings. Oracle says that the addition of AmberPoint’s software will help diagnose and manage the performance of business applications, provide monitoring for application performance and will enrich SOA design time with run-time metrics for SOA governance.      
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| Vitamin D Video Surveillance System Sheds Beta Tag, Announces Pricing Posted: 08 Feb 2010 05:35 AM PST  Vitamin D Video has officially gone out of beta and is now available in 1.0. The basic, single camera version of the software is available now for free while a two camera version costs $49 and unlimited cameras costs $199. The software watches a web-based camera - including many popular models from Linksys and D-Link - and records motion as it it happens, even alerting you when humans step into the frame. I've been using the beta for months now with a Linksys WVC54GCA and I consider the software an early warning system for the home. Since I work up in the attic I can't always tell if I'm facing a friend or a foe at the front door so I rely on Vitamin D to ping whenever someone comes into the frame. Special motion sensing systems also pick up lights and other activity outside while the system can also email clips to a mailbox whenever an event occurs or ring a chime.
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| Loopt Partners With Mobile Spinach To Offer Location-Based Deals Posted: 08 Feb 2010 05:00 AM PST
The deals are part advertising part coupon and will only be featured in San Francisco for now. Coupon site Mobile Spinach will offer dozens of deals exclusively to Loopt users and through their own site per week. For example, Blowfish Sushi, a Sushi restaurant in San Francisco, offers any signature roll for free which typically costs $10-$15 per roll. Loopt users show their phone message at the restaurant to receive these discounts. Loopt says it will be rolling out the offers in LA and New York in the coming months. The deals feature will be integrated into Loopt’s app in the same way that local content and reviews about restaurants, bars and events from Zagat, Citysearch and the Loopt community are featured in the app. Loopt’s COO Brian Knapp tells me that location-based deals are central to the future strategy of Loopt. And the coupons serve as an advertisement and an incentive to frequent an establishment. Loopt is monetizing these coupons in some way, but Knapp declined to give the specifics of what the revenue breakdown is. Of course, most of Loopt competitors are making similar ventures in the mobile coupon and deals space. Foursquare has special deals for “Mayors” of establishments and Yelp offers location-based specials and offers in its mobile apps. Even Google is getting into the mobile coupon game. With 3 million users, Loopt is continuing to innovate its platform to compete in a competitive space, where Facebook may be entering as well. Location-based deals are one part of the picture; with check-ins, advertising and even merchant reviews and listings all included as features.      
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| Poland’s ‘Facebook’ Is Up For Grabs In A Central European Roll-Up Posted: 08 Feb 2010 04:55 AM PST
According to local newspaper reports, the largest Internet group in the region, Naspers/MIH Group, is conducting due diligence of assets belonging to DST (Digital Sky Technology)-owned holding Forticom, including the “Facebook-of-Poland” Nasza-Klasa.pl which has 23 million users. Naspers/MIH Group and DST already together own the largest Russian online portal Mail.ru.      
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| Investment Group Backed By Google, Disney To Buy Into Chinese Bus Media Firm Posted: 08 Feb 2010 04:40 AM PST
The deal, which would provide Disney with a new platform to promote Mickey Mouse in China, is oddly said to involve Google, which is a minority investor in the consortium according to the news agency’s sources. The consortium reportedly planned to acquire a stake of between 30 and 40 percent in Bus Online for more than $100 million via a purchase of old and new shares to be issued by the company in private placements. Bus Online has raised approximately $80 million from VC firms and banks since 2004. Google was expected to take only a small stake in the Bus Online deal compared to Disney, but Reuters’ sources stressed that no agreement had been signed yet and senior Disney execs are planning a trip to Beijing to meet Chinese media regulators about its China plans first. Nevertheless, Google’s involvement in the negotiations is rather odd. The search and digital advertising giant recently took a stand against censorship in China, after having been hit with ‘highly sophisticated and targeted attack’ on its corporate infrastructure from the country. Google threatened to shut down its business operations in China if the government did not agree to let the firm operate an uncensored search engine there, an issue that is still unresolved at this point.      
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| Trackle Goes Pro; Launches Premium Version Of Realtime Tracking Alerts Posted: 08 Feb 2010 03:56 AM PST Trackle, the personalized web and realtime feed tracker, is going pro with the launch of premium tracking services aimed at marketing and PR professionals looking to track mentions of clients across the web. Trackle.com's web service lets users create personalized RSS feeds for data such as the latest crime in a user's neighborhood, fluctuating airline ticket prices, updated job listings, sports scores and more. On Trackle, marketing, PR and sales professionals can set up realtime tracking alerts for key words to track press coverage and mentions across Tweets, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and the web. The initial service will allow users to enable “Trackles” for a select number of keyword categories, including company, person, brand, SEC filings; website changes and LinkedIn updates. Trackle will email and SMS alerts for mentions and even provide users with graphs and charts detailing results. The service is available for $9.99 per month. Trackle, which launched a year ago, recently became more social by allowing you search and follow other users’ Trackles by keyword. The search platform also lets users filter the sources by credibility, social network and more. Trackle will also show users who have similar interests, so you can. The startup is also trying its hand at setting up Trackle button on sites to provide instant tracking options directly to consumers to allow users "Trackle" an item or feed from anywhere on the web. Trackle now has 100,000 users and is generating 2 million alerts of information each day. It’s sort of like Google Alerts on steroids. But the premium service will face competition from the plethora of social media and web tracking services in the space, including Viralheat, Socialseek and others. As we've said in the past, the major obstacle Trackle will face is gaining more users and becoming viral. But it seems that the site is looking to engage PR and marketing professionals instead of consumers and with its reasonable pricing, it could find a loyal following in this sector.      
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| AMEE Gets $5.5m Series B To Go Global With Realtime Carbon Engine Posted: 08 Feb 2010 12:32 AM PST
The prize AMEE is aiming for, known in the sector as “enterprise carbon management”, is expected to reach $4 billion by 2017 because of government and consumer pressure to address climate change. AMEE’s engine is now being used by companies offering carbon accounting or business intelligence software, as well as governments, multi-nationals and SMEs.      
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Social music player 
It looks like some major consolidation is about to go down in the Central European Internet market, and in particular Poland.
A consortium of investors led by 
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