The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Twitter Still Grew 109 Percent In June, Fueled By Global Visitors
- DirecTV Signs Up For Google TV Ads
- Flurry Brings Recommendation Engine To Android Apps
- The Dell Streak Shows The CE World How To Be Relevant In An iDevice World
- Bike Nerds To Create a Low Cost Bike Sharing System For New York
- Philly-Based Incubator DreamIt Ventures Graduates 14 Startups
- Talentag, A Social CV Where Co-Workers Earn Foursquare-Style Badges
- Confirmed: HOPA Dry Erase Girl Is A Hoax, Identity Revealed
- The Dealmap Brings The Daily Deal Obsession To The iPhone App Store
- Phones? Set-Top Boxes? Tablets? As Apple And Google Fight, Amazon Quietly Lurks
- Urban Airship Brings Easy Push Notifications To Android
- With New Auto-Import Itinerary Feature For Gmail, TripIt Just Got Easier To Use
- Mark Hurd Had The Lowest Employee Approval Rating (34%) Of Any Major Tech CEO
- Facebook Bullies PlaceBook Into Changing Their Name — Or The Way It’s Pronounced
- RIM Reportedly Bows To Pressure From Saudi Arabia, Hands Over Blackberry Access
- I Move You Is An Evite For Healthy Activities
- Why I’d Use Shopkick But Not Foursquare
- New iPod To Sport Retina Display And Dual Cameras?
- Ustream Goes Hollywood With New Office And Hires
- A Private, Anti-Foursquare To Geo-Fence Those Neer To You
- With Fast Follow You Can Get Tweets Via SMS Even If You Don’t Use Twitter
- Topix Agrees To Drop “Priority Fees” For Reviewing Inappropriate Content
- Washington Attorney General Hits Intelius With Fine, Injunctions
- Not A Good Day For Wikileaks: Attacked By Human Rights Organizations, Julian Assange Target Of International Trackdown
- Can The iPhone Get You Laid?
| Twitter Still Grew 109 Percent In June, Fueled By Global Visitors Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:06 AM PDT
It’s important to note that these stats aren't necessarily a good measure of the total number of people people using Twitter's platform (it only includes data for people who have been to Twitter.com, and not any applications that access Twitter through the API). In terms of region, Latin America experienced the strongest growth, surging 305 percent year-over-year to 15.4 million users in June. Asia Pacific ranked as the second-fastest growing region, climbing 243 percent to 25.1 million visitors. The Middle-East Africa jumped 142 percent to 5 million visitors, while Europe increased 106 percent to 22.5 million visitors. North America only saw a 22 percent increase to nearly 25 million visitors in June. This last stat isn’t surprising considering that Twitter has more saturation in the the U.S. than in international markets. comScore also analyzed Twitter usage via mobile phones for the six mobile markets currently reported by company (U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy) which unsurprisingly showed that Twitter is seeing increased traffic among smartphone users. In the U.S., 8.3 percent of smartphone users (4.2 million people) accessed Twitter.com in a month via the browser on their mobile devices. In Europe, 2.8 percent of smartphone users overall accessed Twitter.com (1.7 million users), with the U.K. experiencing the strongest penetration in the region at 5.8 percent, followed by Germany with 3.1 percent and France with 2.1 percent. The total web traffic numbers are impressive considering that these don’t include third-party apps, like Tweetdeck and Seesmic, which are relatively popular amongst users. And it’s also important to mention that with the World Cup, Twitter was seeing record amounts of usage and traffic worldwide. In June, Twitter COO Dick Costolo shared the company's internal stats, which show that Twitter gets 190 million visitors per month, and 65 million tweets a day.       
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| DirecTV Signs Up For Google TV Ads Posted: 11 Aug 2010 08:36 AM PDT Google is finally expanding its Google TV ad service beyond the Dish satellite network, its initial partner for the past two years. Today, it announced a new partnership with DirecTV, the rival satellite TV network controlled by News Corp. The two satellite networks together give Google ads a combined reach of 30 million homes, which is starting to become meaningful. Google puts software on the set-top boxes to help it target TV ads in a more granular fashion. It is not clear whether these ads actually perform better than run-of-the-mill TV ads, but Google has partnered with Nielsen to provide demographic data for the audience it reaches with its ads. Gaining a second major partner is a big step for Google, and it took two years to do it. (Other than these two, a handful of cable channels are also partners such as the History International, Hallmark, Hallmark Movie, Bloomberg, and the Tennis Channel). The satellite networks are generally faster to adopt newer technologies than the cable networks. For Google TV Ads to become more than a side-project, the cable networks will have to sign up as well, and they are a little more fearful of turning data over to Google. But if these ads start to perform better than typical broadcast ads, or even some of the targeted ads cable companies are experimenting with on their own through companies such as Black Arrow, then they may buckle and start showing Google TV ads. That is exactly what Google is hoping for—that it can deliver better ads with better data.       
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| Flurry Brings Recommendation Engine To Android Apps Posted: 11 Aug 2010 08:35 AM PDT
Flurry’s AppCircle attempts to match up app developers who want to gain more users with those who want to make money from promoting other apps. The service leverages Flurry’s recommendation engine in combination with Flurry Analytics to recommend the appropriate app to the right user at the right time from within participating Flurry network of applications. AppCircle is built on top of Flurry Analytics, a service used by 45,000 applications on iPhone, Android, For App publishers who want to earn money, they can integrate Flurry into their applications, which allows Flurry to serve targeted application recommendations to their consumers. Publishers earn 60% of the price for each app download. For promoters, application developers create campaigns and set bids on how much they are willing to pay for a new user. Flurry's recommendation engine will match relevant promoter apps to display within publisher apps, and then use bidding to rank the order in which impressions are shown. Publishers can also use their own virtual currency to encourage downloads. After the crackdown on Flurry from Apple for violating privacy policies, it is not surprising that the startup is broadening its horizons to other smartphone platforms. But Android may not be a save haven for long. In theory, it seems like a good idea to help developers who want more users be able to connect with publishers who want to make money; but I wonder if it’s only a matter of time before Google starts doing this with AdMob.       
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| The Dell Streak Shows The CE World How To Be Relevant In An iDevice World Posted: 11 Aug 2010 07:32 AM PDT
Dell finally released the Streak’s price and release date yesterday: available August 13th for $300 on contract, $550 off. A bit more than the norm, yes, but the Streak isn’t your average phone/tablet. It’s the convergence of two form factors and Dell must have known it wasn’t an iPad killer or any of that nonsense from the start. It really seems like the company just wanted to offer consumers something a bit different.       
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| Bike Nerds To Create a Low Cost Bike Sharing System For New York Posted: 11 Aug 2010 06:56 AM PDT A group of charming fellows have created something they’re calling “Social Bicycles,” a bike-sharing system that allows you to drop bikes off almost anywhere there is a bike rack, locate them, and access them with an iPhone app. And it’s all outside of the confines of traditional urban bike-sharing systems. While we all know that humans are intrinsically violent and destructive, the lads at Sobi are betting that at least some of them won’t destroy the bikes they borrow. The system uses a lock fastened to the bike’s wheel with a GPS system and transmitter built-in. When the bike is locked, it appears on the SoBi app and when you check it out you’re responsible for it.       
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| Philly-Based Incubator DreamIt Ventures Graduates 14 Startups Posted: 11 Aug 2010 06:00 AM PDT Editor’s note: This guest post is written by Michael Levinson, the co-founder and managing partner of DreamIt Ventures, a startup incubator. Levinson is also the co-founder of business collaboration Saas platform WizeHive. Philadelphia-based DreamIt Ventures, a pre-seed stage venture firm and incubator founded in 2007 by David Bookspan, Steve Welch, and myself is graduating 14 startups today. It's been a busy third year for DreamIt as prior companies incubated, including Google Ventures-backed SCVNGR, TechCrunch 50 Finalist SeatGeek, PostLing, and NoteHall, have all raised funding. You can read my coverage of last year’s batch of DreamIt startups here. Below is a description of each company in DreamIt's class of 2010:
      
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| Talentag, A Social CV Where Co-Workers Earn Foursquare-Style Badges Posted: 11 Aug 2010 05:57 AM PDT  Talentag.com, which gets an 'official' launch today, is the new consumer-facing product from the team behind Emp.ly, the social recruiting startup. It's pitching itself as a "social CV", and features the recommendation element of LinkedIn but adds Foursquare-style badges and traditional tags as a fun and quick way of soliciting a 'thumbs up' from co-workers and friends. Recommendations don't just operate as a popularity contest, however, but can be tied to actual work roles that the user has had.
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| Confirmed: HOPA Dry Erase Girl Is A Hoax, Identity Revealed Posted: 11 Aug 2010 12:08 AM PDT
I’d love to pull out some well-worn meta-media analysis about how memes are increasingly where we get our culture and we need to be more circumspect when filtering information yada yada, but I’ll leave that to my betters. Elyse Porterfield or “Jenny DryErase,” who went straight from our inboxes to the “1,000,000 Strong for Jenny DryErase to Pose in Playboy” Facebook fan page, should speak for herself. New to Los Angeles from Greeley, Colorado, 22-year-old aspiring actress Elyse Porterfield responded to the following ad in Actors Access last Thursday. The photo shoot, which happened that Friday, was for an image board site called The Chive. The Chive (which gets around 5.6 million unique visits a month, according to Google) is part of a network of viral sites run by brothers Leo and John Resig, who have a storied history of manufacturing Internet hoaxes, most notably the $10,000 Donald Trump tip and the infamous “virgin text messages her dad that she lost her virginity.” Both hoaxes ended up punking various mainstream media outlets including Fox News, Gawker and Jay Leno. Porterfield told TechCrunch, “When I went into the audition, I didn’t know what it was for — but thought that this couldn’t be too bawdy or promiscuous or else they wouldn’t have me holding a dry erase board. “ The actress’ prior claims to fame include being compared to Angelina Jolie in People Magazine and performing in her college theater troupe. She had not heard of the acronym HOPA beforehand. The brothers Resig came up with the idea for “Dry Erase Girl” about a month ago at the King’s Head Bar in Santa Monica, CA, and wrote down the details on paper napkins, including the etymology of HOPA (see below). Says John Resig, “We came up with a hoax that was completely relatable. It wasn’t spread by TechCrunch and Reddit. It was spread by Facebook and inter-office email. Everyone wants to quit their jobs like this.“ All they had to do was post the images of Porterfield holding the dry erase board on The Chive at around 4:30 am this morning, and College Humor re-posted, followed shortly by TechCrunch. Resig says they targeted us because his publicist said that they should try for a TechCrunch write-up (Nice work guys). When asked if this was done purely to garner traffic and get media attention, Resig responded,
And later, “It struck a personal chord. And people wanted to share it.” To the tune of 238k facebook shares and 31k tweets. Based on what was essentially a lie. The brothers told a skeptical Peter Kafka that Jenny was “real,” they told us that people “want to believe.” From Resig:
Resig still has another media announcement planned for 10 a.m. PDT tomorrow. And he is not sad that the meme is essentially dying with this post, “A hoax has two lives, the initial hoax and the story of how it happened. Even though this is a hoax, people want to see a walking/talking Jenny, the people want Jenny.“ In either case, Porterfield, who spent all day reading the comments and having a blast, is still in awe, “A million Facebook friends, I’m going to wake up to a million Facebook friends.” “I Want to Make a Meme” Photo: Buzzfeed Actors Access Ad: Boing Boing       
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| The Dealmap Brings The Daily Deal Obsession To The iPhone App Store Posted: 10 Aug 2010 11:07 PM PDT For the daily deal obsessed on the go, a Groupon mobile app is simply not enough. Enter The Dealmap, a daily deal aggregator that is launching its iPhone app this evening. Bringing the functionality of its website to the app store, The Dealmap helps users find the best deals in their area, whether they’re from national retailers, local vendors, crowdsourced or daily deals. With roughly 350,000 live deals in the pipeline per day, this app is the largest deal aggregator in the mobile space— at least for now. The Dealmap is owned and operated by Center’d, a local search and discovery engine that helps users find venues, activities and plan events. Center’d was founded in 2006 by CEO Jennifer Dulski, formerly Yahoo’s VP of local markets and commerce, and CTO Chandu Thota, previously the lead developer of Microsoft Virtual Earth (today known as Bing Maps). The startup, which has amassed $8.9 million in funding largely from Norwest Venture Partners and Keynote Ventures, didn’t find a runaway hit with its primary service, Center’d. However, as the daily deal space heats up and aggregators become more important (esp. with Groupon and a sea of clones blanketing the web with discounts), The Dealmap could be their lucky break. The site, which launched in May, has seen decent growth in the last ten weeks. According to Dulski, the service now reaches 300,000 users every day through its e-mail list and its 60 Twitter accounts. On the web, Dealmap offers a simple user interface. You can sign up for notifications with your e-mail address or you can immediately search for local deals by plugging in your zip code. Once you enter your location, the site pulls up a Google map with an approximate 10-mile radius. Deals are flagged according to their category, like health & beauty, restaurants and hotels. For those who are overwhelmed by the options, there’s a bar at the top that highlights several deals. Here’s a look at my zip code in Palo Alto: According to Dulski, Dealmap is the largest online repository for daily deals. The service has 150 sources for deal data, 100 of which are daily deal sites, including Groupon. The startup also pulls information from national providers, other online services like Restaurant.com, Foursquare and even users (users are encouraged to submit offers they find online or on the street). Currently, Dealmap makes most of its money from a stable of affiliate partners. While the contracts vary, in a typical transaction a daily deal site will pay Dealmap a small fraction of each transaction driven by the service. DealMap’s iPhone app showcases most of the site’s functions— with a few additional tweaks to take advantage of the mobile platform. For example, by default, the service will automatically pull offers within a one mile radius of your current location. You can also quickly zoom in and out to expand or reduce the field. By focusing on the meat of the service, the app is actually a preferable experience based on aesthetics. The tabs are easy to navigate, you can quickly filter deals by categories like “top deals,” “daily deals,” “restaurants and bars,” “etc.” Furthermore, when you want to submit a deal to earn points, it’s an easier process on the mobile app. When you find an offer, power up the app, it will pull up a list of nearby businesses, tap on the store you’re looking for, take a photo and punch in a brief description of the offer and the expiration date. That may sound like a lot of effort, but the points can be traded for tangible rewards, including gift certificates for affiliate partners. Clearly, there’s a real need for a comprehensive aggregator like Dealmap— my only frustration with the site and the app is the discovery process and the quality of the deals. By acting as the funnel for thousands of local and national deals, Dealmap must wrestle with the gigantic challenge of making all the offers accessible and simultaneously pushing the best content to the top. Dulski, who admits it’s a work in progress, says there is an algorithm in place (related to the Center’d platform) that sorts offers based on how trustworthy the source is and the reputation of the local business. Although largely helpful, I personally found the service occasionally frustrating and at times disappointing. For example, during my Palo Alto search, offers included “A Free iPod Touch” from the Apple Store (of course, you had to click through to learn that it was only free with the purchase of a MacBook) and what seemed to be a ridiculous deal at the Bistro 412: a $25 certificate for just $2 (except the minimum purchase is $50). Oh well, as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true…       
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| Phones? Set-Top Boxes? Tablets? As Apple And Google Fight, Amazon Quietly Lurks Posted: 10 Aug 2010 11:06 PM PDT
The Kindle does make sense as a device to move Amazon content. And it’s finally priced to the point where that can happen in a major way (at least for a while). But if Amazon’s hardware strategy really is a means to move content, why are they stopping with Kindle books? Well, they’re not according to some information dug up by the New York Times. Amazon is working on a number of hardware products, sources tell Nick Bilton of NYT. According to these people with knowledge of Amazon’s plans, the Kindle was merely the first piece of hardware to come out of the online retail giant. More specifically, the company has a division named Lab 126 that is in charge of these hardware projects — and we can probably expect devices meant to facilitate Amazon music and movie purchases (and rentals) next. The obvious initial thought there is that this could mean some sort of Amazon MP3 player. But MP3 players are already on their way out — just ask Apple. iPod sales continue to fall despite sales of nearly every other Apple product going through the roof. In fact, the only iPod that seems to be going strong is the the iPod touch — a device which is much more than an MP3 player. It would make much more sense for Amazon to be working on some sort of media consumption device for the living room. Yes, an Amazon TV. While Amazon’s movie download and rental services work on other devices, building their own set-top box would simply mimic their Kindle strategy. Remember that there are Kindle apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android phones. The goal would once again be to make Amazon’s content as accesible as possible. Such a box could obviously work for music purchases in the living room too. And Amazon may feel the need to move into that space as their Amazon MP3 service, long the second-fiddle to iTunes, is about to come under assault from Google too, with Google Music. Further, Google TV is launching this Fall and could also mean more Google-provided content rather than content of the Amazon variety. And, of course, Apple is already in the living room with the Apple TV — but it’s the rumors of a major revamp that could turn it into a big player. But the most interesting part of the story may be this blurb:
If such a project hasn’t even been started yet, obviously Amazon would be far behind by the time it got to market. But again, what if their plan for a phone wasn’t to have a super-fancy smartphone like the iPhone or Android phones — what if they wanted to build a cheap device that make it simple to consume Amazon content? It’s still a far-fetched plan (one they may be unlikely to do), but if they positioned themselves correctly, it could be interesting. In the months leading up to Android, everyone believed Google was going to launch the “Google Phone.” We forget now, but one of the key ideas behind those rumors was that Google could potentially give the phone away for free thanks to the ad impressions it would generate. Obviously, that’s not what ended up happening. Google didn’t end up making the phones themselves (though they helped with the Nexus One) and the OEMs are still creating devices that tend to come in around $199 after a 2-year contract (in the U.S., at least). What if Amazon could make a viable $99 smartphone? What about a $49 one? While they may lack the hardware prowess of Apple, clearly they’re working on strengthening that part of the business. As long as they don’t care about the build quality as much as Apple does, who is to say they couldn’t put something like that together? Such maneuvering would essentially make Amazon the anti-Apple. Apple makes money off of hardware sales — the content exists so Apple can move hardware. And Apple makes very little money off of content sales. Amazon would presumably be looking to make money off of content sales, but wouldn’t care so much about making money off of the hardware (at least in the scenario I’m laying out). I have my doubts how well that would work, but it would be an interesting play. Here’s another key quote from the NYT piece:
Because of devices like the iPhone, Android phones, the iPad, and soon Google TV, Android tablets, and Apple TV, Amazon’s consumer core is under assault. It may seem as if only Apple and Google are duking it out, but in their quest to one-up one another, they’re also gaining more control over their own content for their devices. That could spell major trouble for Amazon in the long run, and they know it. The upcoming Windows Phone 7 is likely to take on Android, while anything HP does with webOS will likely take on Apple. Perhaps Amazon is content to let all of them duke it out while they quietly lurk and come up with their own solutions to ensure that Amazon content keeps moving. Bring on the Amazon Phone. [photo: flickr/torley]       
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| Urban Airship Brings Easy Push Notifications To Android Posted: 10 Aug 2010 10:30 PM PDT
Developers have plenty of reasons to send out push notifications to users — they can include things like important messages about updates, breaking news, or gaming challenges (they’re also good for keeping users engaged long after they’ve initially installed an app). Getting a notification from an application that uses Urban Airship should be pretty familiar to most Android users: you’ll see a notice pop up in the message slider at the top of the screen, and tapping on it will execute an action (generally taking you to whatever app sent the message).
Urban Airship also gives developers more flexibility with their messaging. Using Urban Airship’s control panel, developers can see how frequently users are engaging with, or “clicking through” messages. Developers can also A/B test their messages to see which ones users respond best to, and they can tailor their messaging campaigns to be sent out in multiple batches, sending them out based on each user’s usage patterns. Finally, the service operates across iPhone and BlackBerry in addition to Android — if your app is available on multiple platforms, you can use the Urban Airship backend to manage your campaigns across all of them. However, the new service comes with one quirk — when a user downloads an Android application that has integrated Urban Airship’s push service, they’ll be prompted to download a separate helper Urban Airship application. They’ll only have to do this once (any subsequent Urban Airship-enabled apps they download will use the same helper app). But it may still rub some Android users the wrong way, as it’s rare for an application to immediately prompt users to download another, separate app. Kveton says was done to help conserve battery life and because this model is more secure. However, he said if users object, the service could potentially allow developers to “bake in” Urban Airship notifications without he need for the helper app. Urban Airship charges developers based on the number of messages they distribute. The company has sent nearly 1 billion notifications to over 35 million devices in just over a year, and it has over 3,000 customers. Customers include Tapulous, Justin.tv, Newsweek, Gowalla, Dictionary.com, the DNC, and LivingSocial.       
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| With New Auto-Import Itinerary Feature For Gmail, TripIt Just Got Easier To Use Posted: 10 Aug 2010 10:00 PM PDT
The feature essentially replaces needing to forward confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com. If you have a TripIt account you can register your Gmail or Google Apps account for the auto-import feature, allowing TripIt to automatically import your travel confirmation emails to create itineraries. The feature works across TripIt’s web platform and the startup’s apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry phones. TripIt assures that the company only looks for travel-related emails in users accounts and nothing else. The parsing technology being used to scan emails is the same technology TripIt uses to extract information from travel confirmation emails and populate tis information into itineraries. TripIt’s president and co-founder Gregg Brockway says that the new feature represents one more step in making the startup an effortless resource for travelers. And Brockway says that TripIt will be incorporating the tool with other email platforms in the near future. While it may be minute compared to other functionality enhancements, the auto-import feature only reinforces how awesome TripIt is for organizing travel plans.       
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| Mark Hurd Had The Lowest Employee Approval Rating (34%) Of Any Major Tech CEO Posted: 10 Aug 2010 09:46 PM PDT Softcore-porn-actress-turned-marketing-consultant Jodie Fisher wasn’t the only person who failed to be enamored by HP CEO Mark Hurd, who was forced to resign as a result of an investigation into his relationship with Ms. Fisher. According to Glassdoor, a site where employees can anonymously rate companies and CEOs, Hurd had the lowest employee approval rating of any major tech CEO. Only 34 percent of self-described HP employees on the site approved of his performance, and 66 percent disapproved. In comparison, Steve Jobs has a 98 percent approval rating among Apple employees, Cisco CEO John Chambers has an 81 percent approval rating, and Hurd’s tennis partner and defender, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, has a 78 percent approval rating. Even Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz (56%) and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (52%) are more loved by their employees than Hurd. It is not exactly a mystery as to why Hurd was not universally loved by HP employees. He was a relentless cost-cutter, an expert at eliminating thousands of jobs at the company while paying himself handsomely. He also got HP back on its feet, adding $30 billion in revenues and tripling profits over five years. Employee sentiment can only tell you so much, and like any review site, people with complaints are more motivated to share their feelings than people who are happy. And while his approval rating dropped from a high of 57 percent in the third quarter of 2008 down to 19 percent last year or so, it did start to rebound during the current quarter.
      
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| Facebook Bullies PlaceBook Into Changing Their Name — Or The Way It’s Pronounced Posted: 10 Aug 2010 09:21 PM PDT
In the video below, PlaceBook founder Michael Rubin makes the case for why he shouldn’t have to change the name — just the pronounciation. It’s not PlaceBook, it’s PlacèBoök. Big difference. Blogger Robert Scoble gave the world a peek of what PlaceBook was up to back in June. But again, they’re still in stealth mode, so it’s largely under wraps. They’re definitely worth watching though as it’s a group of former Netflix executives working in the location field. It’s just not clear yet what name we’ll have to watch them under — oh right, PlacèBook. In all seriousness, Rubin admits that they’re undoubtedly going to have to change the name thanks to Facebook. They’ll be announcing what it will actually be shortly.       
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| RIM Reportedly Bows To Pressure From Saudi Arabia, Hands Over Blackberry Access Posted: 10 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT
RIM’s response was a stolid “relax,” but the public response appears to be different from the internal one, if reports from inside the company are true. What the Saudi Government has praised as “positive developments” are reportedly concessions by RIM giving that government unprecedented access to certain RIM resources, giving it the power to eavesdrop on any Saudi Blackberry user. Continue reading on MobileCrunch…       
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| I Move You Is An Evite For Healthy Activities Posted: 10 Aug 2010 05:45 PM PDT
The site, which allows you to create a profile or sign in with your Twitter or Facebook credentials, allows you to make a public statement about an activity you will do and invite others to do the same. Health-focused challenges range from swimming 10 laps to doing 50 pushups. The idea behind I Move You is that if you state your challenge publicly, you’ll be more willing to follow through with the action. On the site, each action can be commented on, and you can follow people on the site and receive alerts when actions are completed. The interface is similar to a Facebook news feed, where you can access a list of the most recent challenges made within your social graph. McCabe says the site’s original ambitions are to inspire people to make health-related challenges, but it’s evolved into a platform for a variety of challenges (such as challenging a friend to make a donation or making your bed everyday, etc.). And McCabe says that 75 percent of the challenges on the site are being completed. The fledgling startup has even started to bring in revenue. I Move You is partnering with brands to create sponsored “I Move You” platforms to motivate customers or employees. For example, the startup has a deal now with dairy products company Cabot to challenge consumers to random acts of fitness. And I Move You has already raised seed funding from a number of notable investors, including Founders Fund and Esther Dyson.       
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| Why I’d Use Shopkick But Not Foursquare Posted: 10 Aug 2010 04:34 PM PDT
Don’t get me wrong, I think it's a smart idea, and I have plenty of friends who get sucked in by the cleverly-exploited game theory dynamics. I think eventually location-based services and bringing a real world, micro-location aspect to a Web that has erased the importance of where-you-are is the next huge market. And I give the founders props for not taking the easy sale and driving a hard bargain with some of the industry’s toughest investors. But, as a user, telling my friends where I am doesn't gives me enough in return to warrant the privacy invasion. The problem isn’t more seamless check-ins or putting more barriers to protect my privacy — the problem is giving me a good enough reason to share. The assumption is that return will be loyalty coupons, but with rampant fake-check-ins and the sales and marketing challenge of selling every mom-and-pop hipster bar, coffee shop, restaurant that's going to be one hard network effect to pull off. (Ask Craigslist, Yelp, OpenTable and the zillions of competitors that failed to get that local network effect in even one city.) The social media rules, for me, are simple: I don't get hung up on privacy. I assume if I voluntarily put something on the Web, it'll get out. If I don't want it out, I don't put it on the Web. And if I'm sharing things that help you as a marketer, I need something in return. That whole endorphin rush of connecting with far-flung friends, knowing where they are, what they are doing, who they are dating? Facebook and Twitter already have nailed the low-hanging fruit there so you have to up the ante considerably if that's supposed to be the users' motivator, just like Groupon upped the ante on Amazon. Enter shopkick—which launched last week and is the first location-based product I've seen that could give me a reason to share. Cyriac Roeding Shopkick's founder and CEO was on Press:Here with me last week and I figured it was worth posting for anyone else out there who's felt alone and adrift in this Foursquare-obsessed world. (Full show is here.) There are three things I like about shopkick and two reasons I'm waiting to try it. Likes: Doesn't rely on bogus, fake-able check-ins; the sharing is between a retailer and me and they already know I'm in the store so it's not much of an invasion; I actually get points I can use broadly across several online and offline brands, including making charity donations. Two caveats: It's only on the iPhone and there aren't close to enough retailers to make it a must-have….yet.       
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| New iPod To Sport Retina Display And Dual Cameras? Posted: 10 Aug 2010 04:16 PM PDT
Apple wonk John Gruber has casually suggested on Daring Fireball that a few weeks will bring us a Retina display-toting and dual camera-equipped iPod touch. He’s been right with this sort of prediction before, and this particular one doesn’t even take any inside information. The timing and positioning are perfect for Apple to debut the iPod touch 4.       
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| Ustream Goes Hollywood With New Office And Hires Posted: 10 Aug 2010 02:55 PM PDT
The other new hires include Wayne Sieve, Ustream’s new VP of Sports, who was formerly head of business development at Yahoo Sports. They’ve also hired Jeff Varnell as executive director of business development (he was formerly an executive director of business development at MySpace). Ustream has had a relationship with Hollywood for a while now — it’s streamed movie premieres, the Golden Globes, and a number of major concerts. But there’s still plenty of room for growth in live online video — the new office will make it easier for Ustream to work with (and hold the hands of) Hollywood execs as they start exploring what they can do with the format. Ustream’s other offices include its headquarters in San Franicisco, and satellites in Budapest and Dallas. Image by Chang’r       
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| A Private, Anti-Foursquare To Geo-Fence Those Neer To You Posted: 10 Aug 2010 02:55 PM PDT If you are going to launch a new location app, creating an anti-Foursquare is probably not a bad idea. About a week ago, a Qualcomm-incubated project called Neer quietly launched on the Android market, and has been downloaded more than 10,000 times since then. Neer is a free, location-sharing app designed for private sharing between family members and people with close, real-world relationships. An iPhone app and Web interface are also in the works. Instead of implicitly checking into different spots like you do with Foursquare and Gowalla, or broadcasting everywhere you go in the background like you do with Google Latitude, Neer creates geo-fences that trigger location updates to your inner circle. As I explained in a post last May:
With Neer, you create a geo-fence around certain places like home, work, or school simply by marking them on your phone when you are there. Entering or leaving the location triggers an update message to your inner circle. Rather than seeing where you are on a map, all they see is the name you’ve given each place. Neer is designed to be private for people who are turned off by the over-sharing of Twitter and Foursquare. You can’t broadcast your location to the public, only to your contacts. And in order to be connected on Neer, both people must have each other’s contact information in their phone address books, and both must have the app installed. It is almost as if Neer wants to make it hard for you to find people to track. And that is kind of the point. Neer is for people who constantly have to keep track of each other and already do so with phone calls, such as husbands and wives with small children. Instead of calling every night to see if a spouse has left work yet in time to help feed the kids or put them in bed, or whether the school drop-off was successful, they can get a reassuring geo-alert. You can also add a text message. Creating geo-fences that work is a hard problem that pretty much all the geo startups are working on. “As far as I am aware, we are the first geo-fenced location service,” says Neer project leader Ian Heidt. The Qualcomm engineers who built Neer figured out a way to use a combination of WiFi and GPS signals to create and monitor geo-fences without draining the battery too much. Neer is part of a new business incubation unit at Qualcomm that will be announced at the end of this month called Qualcomm Services Labs.       
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| With Fast Follow You Can Get Tweets Via SMS Even If You Don’t Use Twitter Posted: 10 Aug 2010 02:50 PM PDT
It’s a simple idea, really. By way of SMS on any phone in the United States, you can get alerts from anyone on Twitter. This is true even if you don’t have a Twitter account. All you have to do is text “follow TWITTERNAME” to Twitter’s shortcode, 40404, and you will start getting realtime updates. This is yet another good idea from Twitter to get people trying out the service. For example, if you see a Twitter name being promoted at a restaurant, you could Fast Follow it via SMS and see what it’s all about. Obviously, Twitter believes people who do this will start to understand the power of the service and will then want to sign up. As such, they’ve created a simple way to do that too via SMS — simply reply to any tweet you get with “SIGNUP”. You can also easily turn the tweets off and on by simply sending “off” and “on” back to the 40404 number. This feature is currently only available in the U.S., but Twitter says it’s working to get it up and running in other countries as well. Given the importance of SMS in countries where smartphones are less prevalent, this could be an even more important feature overseas.       
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| Topix Agrees To Drop “Priority Fees” For Reviewing Inappropriate Content Posted: 10 Aug 2010 01:54 PM PDT
This is content that individuals or entities find to be offensive or damaging. Topix takes up to seven days, they say, to review flagged content, but payment of the priority fee pushes the complaint to the top of the list. From the joint statement, embedded in full below:
Topix has agreed to eliminate the priority review product entirely, and “will continue to refine and improve the technical tools and human resources necessary to allow it to review Feedback requests for reported posts.” The company has agreed to aim for a response time of three working days. I spoke with Topix CEO Chris Tolles by phone today about the agreement. This is a small percentage of total Topix revenue, he says. He added: “Dealing with elected officials from all fifty states and, evidently, other U.S. territories, is part of doing business on the Internet in 2010.”       
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| Washington Attorney General Hits Intelius With Fine, Injunctions Posted: 10 Aug 2010 01:36 PM PDT
A Consent Decree filed in the King County Superior Court in Washington requires the payment of $1.3 million in fines by Intelius. And they’re also restricted from engaging in some types of post transaction marketing, particularly where the consumer’s credit card is automatically being charged for services without them re-entering their payment information. Intelius is also being required to offer refunds to some Washington residents who’ve been scammed. Those consumers will be sent a postcard stating that they may be entitled to a refund. In a press conference Attorney General Rob McKenna stated that 19,000 Washington consumers signed up for the useless services between July 2007 and July 2008, and just one of those consumers was able to successfully get a refund. Up to 80% of consumers viewing the offers signed up, accidentally or not, and were charged for the service. They were then charged an upfront fee, typically $10, and a variable monthly fee, typically $20/month. We did a visual walk through of just how these scams work here. We’ll upload the Consent Decree shortly. Update: The documents:       
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| Posted: 10 Aug 2010 01:24 PM PDT
      
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| Posted: 10 Aug 2010 12:57 PM PDT
Presumably iPhone users are better at getting their kicks in real life. But the chart still leaves the greatest question of our time unanswered, “Do attractive people buy more iPhones, or does the iPhone somehow make you more attractive?” In any case, maybe it’s time some of us reconsidered our gadget predilections. Get more “facts” about the iPhone as aphrodisiac here. Charts: OKCupid Thumbnail: Flickr/hanapbuhay       
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