Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

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TweetBeat Wants To Kill Hashtags On Twitter By Making Them Obsolete

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 09:24 AM PDT

Back in June we previewed a new product by social media search engine Kosmix called TweetBeat. Essentially, it’s a way to follow news being discussed on Twitter in realtime. Today during our TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Kosmix is officially releasing the product.

Kosmix calls TweetBeat “the end of hashtags”. Because they scan all tweets being sent out for all kinds of semantic data, you no longer have to explicitly tag things with hashtag, is their stance. For example, over the past few days there have been almost 64,000 tweets about Disrupt from over 11,000 people — but only a small percentage have used the “#tcdisrupt” tag. TweetBeat found the tweets anyway.

TweetBeat scans over 90 million tweets a day to find the most interesting topics, but only shows you the best tweets about those topics. They do this by identifying the influencers for any given topic. And again, they scan the tweets themselves for semantic data. They also look at signals such as how often a tweet was retweeted or replied to.

With TweetBeat you can ”follow live in real time the most interesting things are saying about any realtime event,” the company says. And if you connect your Twitter account (which you don’t have to), you can easily retweet or reply to anything you see on the service.

For Better Or Worse, Gmail Makes Threaded Emails Optional

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 08:58 AM PDT

Threaded emails in Gmail is a controversial subject. Some say that the automation of drawing emails together within Gmail saves them the time of figuring out which emails are connected. Others find the feature complicated. What it comes down to is either you love the way Gmail clusters conversations together, or you hate it. Today, Gmail is giving people the option to turn on threaded conversations or mute the feature completely.

Within setting, you’ll be able to toggle off conversation view to see email as individual messages in chronological order. Some actions commonly associated with unthreaded email can be accomplished with searches in Gmail.

Google says that the feature will make the transition easier for former users of ‘legacy solutions’ (i.e. Microsoft Outlook, Lotus), who aren’t used to the threaded conversation view. Now business Google Apps customers will have an “enable pre-release features” in the control panel to turn threaded conversations off.

While Google consistently provides us with small, useful features in Gmail, this is probably going to be one that many users might actually make an effort to use.

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Google
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Don’t Believe The Hype, Tablets Aren’t Going To Be This Year’s Must-Have Gift

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 08:40 AM PDT

Sorry, we were wrong. 2010 wasn’t the year of tablet like it was deemed back in January. We all had such high hopes for this year, too. We thought that every manufacturer was going to out some-sort of tablet, but that clearly didn’t happened. There are a few tablets from various manufacturers, but there are only really three tablets available now that aimed at the general consumer market: The Apple iPad, the Dell Streak, and within weeks, the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Retailers and advertisers are already gearing up for what they believe will be a feeding frenzy for these tablets this holiday season. That’s not going to happen. The tablet is not going to be this year’s netbook or Furby — unless that smaller Apple iPad rumor is true.

Playlistnow.fm Does a Catchy Twitter Remix. Look out, Ping.

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 08:14 AM PDT

For anyone that has ever struggled to string together a music playlist - whether it be for listening to at the gym, a party, at work or just casually - you may want to listen up. Playlistnow.fm, a brand new startup coming out of Paris, recently launched a microblogging platform that allows users to discover new music by sharing playlists. When we covered the startup in TechCrunch France, it was nothing shy of a hit with our readers. Perhaps that's because the platform also managed to do what Apple's Ping does not do so well: integrate social.


AOL Buys TechCrunch: The Song

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 07:27 AM PDT

We’re now part of AOL, and Mike has already written at length about what that means for us and you, our readers. And to showcase just how amazing our readers are: one of them actually took the time to produce a song about the deal.

We’re baffled, honored and a little weirded out – kudos to Christoph Grimm from German startup popula, who wrote the song as a sort of thank-you note for writing them up back in April 2008 (which got them funded, eventually).

Here are the lyrics (as they were sent to us):

Oh Wake up, wake up, it’s eight o’ clock on a wednesday morning
I’m checking my mails and Google Reader – yeah I know, It sounds boring

I open up the Techcrunch feed and I still cannot believe

Oh Techcrunch, Techcrunch you help Startups get a little exposure
We’re one of those and you’re the reason investors signed our non disclosure
We even found the one, so we’re glad that you found a nice one, too

I hope TC stays the same
There’s not a thing that I would change
Because you’re amazing just the way you are

Techcrunch’s not your blog
Infact it belongs to all of us
That makes it amazing just the way it is

Hey Mike, do you listen
I want to say thank you for you’ve done.

And congratulations for selling Techcrunch to AOL
Greetings from you beloved clone-capital Germany

Hot or not?

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popula
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Online Marketing Technology Company Netsertive Scores $4 Million Series A

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 06:48 AM PDT

Netsertive, a North Carolina-based online marketing technology company, today announced it has raised $4 million in Series A financing. New York-based venture capital firms RRE Ventures and Greycroft Partners co-invested in the startup.

Netsertive essentially aims to help small and medium sized businesses – as well as their related product manufacturers – reach customers in their respective local markets throughout North America with a strongly data-driven approach to online search & display advertising.

To accomplish this, the fledgling company uses patent-pending technology capable of delivering its online marketing solutions with a strong vertical industry focus.

Netsertive's system continually refines its proprietary knowledgebase within the industries it serves, delivering search advertising as well as co-branded online display advertising developed specifically for each industry.

Netsertive says it plans to hire 35 more people within the next year to keep up with its growth.

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Netsertive
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Dell Planning Another 7-inch Tablet, 10-incher Coming Soon

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 06:34 AM PDT

I love me some Dell Streak. It is, in short, one of the best slates I’ve seen since the iPad (I haven’t seen the SamGalTab yet, but Greg liked it). Well, Dell is at it again with another 7-incher in the next few weeks and a 10-inch model in the next few months.

This is obviously all rumor and innuendo right now but it seems in line with Dell’s current tablet roll outs.

Read more…



PayPal Will Soon Ramp Up Protection Of Buyers Worldwide (But Not For Me)

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 06:23 AM PDT

PayPal has offered buyer protection on its parent company eBay‘s properties since October 2003. Last year, the electronic payments juggernaut began offering purchase protection on merchant sites for select purchases, if the buyer didn't receive the item.

Beginning November 1, shoppers around the world will have expanded buyer protection when they make purchases at the millions of retailers that accept PayPal, just in time for the busy holiday season.

The expanded protections will cover shoppers on merchant websites if they don't receive an item they’ve purchased, or if they receive an item that is significantly different than described by the merchant (“That’s not an iPad, that’s an iPod Touch photographed from closeby”).

Important: PayPal says it will extend the additional benefits to shoppers in nearly all of the 190 countries it serves, but it’s leaving out a bunch of big (mostly European) ones – Brazil, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland and even my home country Belgium will not benefit from the extended policy (sad clown face).

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Geomium, A Location-based Social Network Powered By Data From Yelp, Qype And Eventful

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 05:53 AM PDT

Geomium, a new location-based social network, gets its official launch today, in London first but with other UK cites and then Europe and the U.S. to follow. As with other such services, it lets users connect with friends, but it also emphasizes meeting new people and throws in venue data such as bars, restaurants, etc., as well as local deals and events -- all with a focus on real time. If anything the service is in danger of overwhelming the user while also coming across as another me-too offering: How is Geomium different to the likes of Facebook Places, Foursquare, Rummble, Yelp etc.? But actually, that's why it might just work.


Dawn Capital Invests In European Online Printing Company Optimalprint

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 05:17 AM PDT

Dawn Capital has invested a "substantial" but undisclosed amount in Optimalprint, the European online printing company. Optimalprint says it will use the new capital to expand its existing technology and distribution platform, initially in Europe but eventually globally. The company, founded in 2007, offers premium quality, low cost printed materials for residential and business customers, such as greeting and business cards, office stationery, invitations and calendars, targeting 50 countries worldwide.


Social Learning Company Koofers Raises $5 Million From Revolution, Others

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 05:08 AM PDT

Social learning startup Koofers today announced that it has scored $5 million in Series A equity funding. This round includes Revolution, created by AOL (yes, our new parent company) co-founder Steve Case, and Nigel Morris‘ QED Investors with participation of the company’s existing investors, New Atlantic Ventures and Altos Ventures.

Koofers aims to empower students to help each other learn by providing open and free access to course materials, class and professor ratings, study aids and more.

The company says the new capital will be used for product development, marketing and getting more content.

Koofers has aggregated data from more than 400 universities and uses social networks such as Facebook to attract students, who use the service to prepare for class, study more efficiently and save money. More than 310,000 college students have signed up so far.

Said John Backus from New Atlantic Ventures:

"Koofers is driving the reinvention of our university system. Traditionally, academic education has been top-down, with the wise teacher imparting knowledge, one way, to the blank-slate mind of the student. Social media on the web destroys this hierarchy and creates a level playing field for knowledge around the world, where students and professors learn from and teach each other.”

Founded in 2008, Koofers is headquartered in Reston, VA. Heading the company is CEO Gio Hunt, a veteran AOL executive.

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Koofers
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Jaiku Founder Raises Seed Funding For New Venture, Pingpin, Wastes My Time

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 04:59 AM PDT

Looks like Jaiku founder and former Googler Jyri Engeström is up to something new. According to an SEC filing, a startup listing Engeström as chief executive officer called Pingpin has just raised $775,000 in financing.

Backers are BetaWorks (the startup’s address matches that of the early-stage investment firm) and True Ventures, as founder and managing partner Jon Callaghan is listed as a director as well.

Update: silicontap stumbled upon this yesterday.

I’ve tried to contact Engeström to learn more about what Pingpin is, but have yet to receive a response (according to his Twitter feed, he’s attending TechCrunch Disrupt SF so he’s likely still asleep).

When I signed up to be notified when it launches, I did get this message:

You’ll be notified at **@gmail.com when Pingpin becomes available on the App Store.

Which means they’re building an iOS application, evidently.

Another indication that it concerns something in the mobile space is the fact that the third director listed is a man named Teemu Ikonen.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Ikonen spent years at mobile messaging infrastructure company Airwide Solutions after it bought the company he was working for since January 2001 (First Hop).

Other than that, it’s anyone’s guess what Pingpin is, but we’re keeping a close eye on it. Engestrom famously sold Twitter rival Jaiku to Google back in October 2007. Two years later, he left the Internet giant to pursue new things.

Oh, and if you’re looking for some time to kill, enter your email on the Pingpin website to know when they launch. I just wasted 15 minutes trying to land that damn balloon (obviously, I’m really bad at casual online games).

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Jyri Engestrom
Betaworks
True Ventures
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Two Amazing Startups You Should Check Out: Cardmobili And RouletteCricket

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 04:18 AM PDT

I was in Amsterdam late last week to sit on the jury for Vodafone's Mobile Clicks startup competition, and I saw four genuinely great fledgling companies strut their stuff. In the end, plastic card-killing startup Cardmobili came out victorious - they won both the €100,000 1st place prize and the public voting award - more on them below. Runner-up and winner of €50,000 was the UK's RouletteCricket, a so-called '2nd screen gaming' service provider that gives fans a new way to engage with cricket games.


Nintendo 3DS To Land In The US In March. All You Need To Know.

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 01:08 AM PDT

Nintendo revealed at its 3DS press conference in Tokyo today that its glasses-free 3D portable game system will hit stores in Japan on February 26 (price: $300, including a 2GB SD card), followed by the US and Europe one month later (price yet unknown). But that wasn't all, as big N also showed the final design of the hardware, listed up quite a few cool game titles and made some other interesting announcements. And if what Nintendo revealed at the press conference is any indication, the 3DS looks like another home run for the company. All details over on CrunchGear.


TechCrunch Backstage Day 2: Armstrong, Chamillionaire, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Oh My! (TCTV)

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 01:00 AM PDT

Chamillionaire admitting his love for Mafia Wars, Steve Streit recounting his first meeting with Michael Moritz, Tim Armstrong and Erick Schonfeld discussing office arrangements in New York, and Mayor Gavin Newsom’s thoughts on baring a striking resemblance to Batman— that’s all the action you may have missed if you only watched the stage during day two of TechCrunch Disrupt.

Check out our backstage interviews with Chamillionaire, Streit, Armstrong, Newsom, Bill Gurley and Twitter’s Jason Goldman. We’ll be back with our live feed for the final day of Disrupt at 8:45 AM PST.

If you missed the backstage interviews for day one, click here.

Steve Streit, CEO of Greendot, on the road to IPO and meeting Michael Moritz.

Chamillionaire: “I don’t play Farmville…I play Mafia Wars.”

Benchmark Capital’s Bill Gurley on the criteria for IPO.

Editor Erick Schonfeld and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong discuss office arrangements in New York.

Okay, Erick Schonfeld here, co-editor of TechCrunch with Tim Armstrong, my new boss. So you just made an announcement on stage that, what was the announcement?

 Yeah, the announcement - was really, I think is something that's very exciting for our future and hopefully, the future with you guys is TechCrunch and AOL getting together and AOL acquiring TechCrunch. But, I think the most important thing we're acquiring is actually talent. And I think you're a big part of that. Mike is a big part of it. Heather is, and the rest of the team and we're excited for the TechCrunch brand also.

We think the future of the internet, it's gonna be built on really substantial brands. And TechCrunch is already well on it's way to being one of the most substantial tech content brands in the world.

 So where does TechCrunch fit within AOL? You're building, you have many brands and many blogs as well. Where do you see TechCrunch fitting in?

 I think first, you know, out of the gate I think TechCrunch, well one thing we'd like to do is kind of keep it in its space and put more resources and scale behind it, and then you know, as we we work together and figure out where the opportunity pockets are, I think we will bring more of the tech properties into an area where you can really say, you know, like Ziff Davis did in the, you know 80's with tech content, how do you become the most influential source of tech content in the world? And I think TechCrunch will be a centralized, you know, pillar of that strategy and, uh, but I think out of the gates, we're gonna figure out how to work together well and figure out how to scale.

Right. What attract you to TechCrunch versus other types of properties in terms of and you've been going in many different directions in terms of broadening your content, your content properties?

 Sure. I think TechCrunch has a couple of very unique strategies that I think you guys have been employing. And I think, you know, one is journalism. I think really covering companies and a specific ecosystem very well. I mean, it's you guys I think are known as the breaking news place for tech information.

The second is things like CrunchBase and other things where you guys have been really influential on taking structured data and mixing that into the, you know, the journalism and breaking news things that you're doing. I think that's actually a very substantial subtext to this.

 And the third thing is, you know, what is the energy level behind the TechCrunch brand and the ecosystem of that in your ecosystem?  And, I think, you come here, there's 2,000 people here, many of the most influential people in the tech community are here and, I think, you take the combo of breaking news journalism, structured data and really deep environment, whether it's the conferences or just relationships you have.

 I think that's a winning combination and that's what really made us interested in TechCrunch.

Okay. Well, we look forward to keeping on building the brand under AOL and, I know that we're really looking forward to the resources you're gonna bring to bear.

Right, we will bring the resources and you're gonna be in New York with me so I'll see you in the office.

 So, I get a desk right next to you.

You will be in my office.

 Okay. Thank you very much.

 All right. Bye, sir. All right. Thank you.

 Okay.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom talks about promoting SF’s technology sector and the industry leaders he turns to.

MG Siegler and Twitter’s Jason Goldman discusses the recent redesign.

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Steve Streit
Bill Gurley
Tim Armstrong
Jason Goldman
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Still to come (pardon for the upload delay):
Cyan Banister’s interview with Shervin Pishevar
Zaw Thet & Friends



MC Hammer Rocks A Perfect Day At TechCrunch Disrupt

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 12:46 AM PDT

I thought things started off pretty well today at TechCrunch Disrupt with surprise visitor Tim Armstrong, AOL’s CEO.

But the day ended on a perfect, perfect note: MC Hammer, who most definitely still has it, did a full performance at 1015 Folsom in San Francisco. 2,000 people packed in to the club and were immediately rewarded with MC Hammer and his dancers doing things that made every single person wildly happy. Not one person wasn’t dancing. It was, as I occasionally say, awesomeness in a bottle.

My coeditor Erick Schonfeld, who had been celebrating for more than a couple of hours at this point, insited we was a dancer and asked me to hold his jacket while he jumped out on stage. Security (the security that’s supposed to keep everything orderly), suggested he not. So much for that plan.

Later though he redeemed himself by opening a bottle of champagne all over Jennifer Allen. I note that he smuggled the champagne into the event after stealing it from Ron Conway’s home. And to be clear, he brought this to an event that had free drinks.

But other than that slight security issue everything was pure magic. Hammer brought these amazing dancers that did amazing things. But a minute later Hammer, who’s nearly twice their age, busted out some impossible Hammer dance invention that separated the men from the boys, so to speak. I watched mesmerized with a goofy grin on my face the whole time. And gave Hammer a big sweaty hug as he walked off stage with the entire crowd wanting to see it all over again from the top.

Even Chamillionaire, fresh off of a poetically brilliant rant on stage at Disrupt, was part of the party.

For an hour tonight, we had 2,000 tech lovers in one room. A room full of bonhomie and general warmth and goodness. That’s all thanks to MC Hammer.

Thank you to Hammer, to Google Ventures and SV Angel for making this day absolutely perfect from start to finish. Now, off to bed for me. Day Three of Disrupt Awaits!

Atlassian Buys Mercurial Project Hosting Site BitBucket

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 12:09 AM PDT

In July, product development software company Atlassian said that it would be putting its recently raised $60 million investment towards M&A in the enterprise space. It looks like the company is moving fast—Atlassian has just acquired Bitbucket.org, a hosted service for code collaboration. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bitbucket, which hosts over 60,000 accounts, is the premier hosted code collaboration provider for the Mercurial distributed version control system and provides a service for developers wanting to share and collaborate on projects. Bitbucket, which is similar to GitHub or Google Code, hosts code for Adium, MailChimp, Opera and other great opensource projects.

Distributed version control systems decentralises the software repository, allowing each user to have a full copy of the source code repository on their local machine. It allows users to work without being tethered to a network.

BitBucket will be incorporated into Atlassian’s family of development products. Atlassian’s software development and collaboration tools to help teams conceive, plan, build and launch products. Products include JIRA (issue tracker) and Confluence (content collaboration). The company’s offerings are used by 20,000 customers around the world, including Facebook, Zynga, Cisco, and Adobe.

As part of the integration, Atlassian is going to make Bitbucket completely free, offering free hosting for 5-devs, with unlimited private repositories. And as a launch promotion, Atlassian is offering a free year for a 10-user account.

Atlassian says that the acquisition helps the company helps fill a gap in product offerings and makes Atlassian a more comprehensive platform to developers. So developers now have a place to dump and host their code, and a place to track their projects issues and bigs within Atlassian. As Atlassian’s Jay Simon tells me, the company wants to do what Adobe does for designers, except for technical teams.

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GameCrush Lets Guys Pay Money To Play Online Games With Women (Seriously)

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 05:45 PM PDT

Meet GameCrush, a startup that manages to sound both ridiculous and very promising at once. The gist: take the millions of male gamers out there and offer to hook them up online with a gaming buddy of the opposite sex for a fee. Or, as founder Eric Strasser put it, “if you can buy a girl a drink in a sports bar, why not buy her a game online?”

The site looks like the fusion of a social network, a casual gaming portal, and a porny cam site. But, as the founders make clear, this isn’t a place for porn — though there are photos of attractive women abound.  After signing up, a gamer (usually a male over the age of 18) browses the profiles of “PlayDates”, which is the term used to refer to the women on the site. Each profile includes the woman’s interests and commonly played games, and of course a gallery of photos are featured front-and-center.

Once a guy has found a profile he likes, he can message the PlayDate and see if she’s interested in playing a game with him (video chats are encouraged). GameCrush has a small library of multiplayer Flash-based games integrated into site, and users can also coordinate a meetup in another gaming environment.

So what’s in it for the PlayDate? GameCrush charges gamers (who are usually men) 60 cents a minute to use the service, and it does a revenue share with both the PlayDates (usually females) and the developer of the game they’re playing. In other words, women can earn money by playing video games with men. GameCrush will also allow men to earn money as PlayDates, but the demand for men-for-hire is significantly lower at this point.

GameCrush has been in private beta for months and has already drawn investor attention and it’s now open to the public.

Q&A

JS: Another reason to be a terrified mother of a teenager. That said, huge market. Interested to know of 10k beta users, what’s the ratio?

A: We heavily restricted. Only about 3000, 7000 Playdates (I think this means females). Playdates can be male or female.

LL: On Chatroulette people show off penises.

A: Chatroulette failed because it’s anonymous. Game community is more respectful than you’d imagine (Jason’s note: false). Can block Ip address. If someone disrespects anyone they get flagged/kicked off.

DD: Three big ways, and you’re potentially hitting two of them: gaming and dating. You’re not doing porn, but it could go that way.. What is monetization strategy?

A: Charge 60 cents a minute to use the service. Rev share with PlayDate community, which is why they are playing online. So a woman can go on, play with gamers and gets a cut. Adult sites are about 7 minutes, you can imagine why. Our sites, because they’re playing 3-4 hours. If we keep clean can target military, univirisites.

JH: First place my mind went when I saw call to action to developers. I wonder what the developer ecosystem is.

A: Beauty of our model is that we do standard rev share, we’re talking about games that are intimate gaming experience with 2-4 players. We can be lucrative for a developer.

Mobile?
A: Challenge is small interace, so you can’t have webcam next to game but there’s an opportunity there.

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GameCrush
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MobilePay May Be The Death Of The Wallet. Yes, For Real This Time.

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 05:40 PM PDT

I absolutely hate carrying around both my phone and my wallet in my pocket. What if I could just carry around my phone and my driver’s license? That would be awesome. If MobilePay USA takes off, my wish will come true.

The company, which was the TechCrunch Disrupt attendee pick to come out of the Startup Alley today seems fairly amazing. It’s an iPhone app (right now, but they will expand it to many mobile platforms) that replaces your credit cards and loyalty cards. You simply enter in your credit card data (but don’t worry, it isn’t stored on your device, it’s securely stored in the cloud) and you can pay for things with the click of a button rather than fumbling around for and carrying all your credit cards.

The app also has a location element which adds to the ease. When you load it up, it looks to see what stores are around you. From here, you can check-in to the venue and make a payment. (There is a venue deals component too.) You choose which card you want to use, enter in how much you want to pay, any tip (if applicable) and you’re done. The payment is transmitted and accepted without you having to do anything. Assuming the venue accepts MobilePay USA payments, they’ll see that you just paid for a product.

Here’s the best part: this doesn’t require merchants to install any new equipment. There is no need for NFC (near field communication) a mobile payment technology (which is non-existent in the U.S.). This all works behind the scenes with existing services. All the consumer needs to do is download the app and enter their cards.

Obviously, there has been no shortage of companies that try to turn your phone into your wallet over the years. But again, this one is interesting because it just works without any new hardware.

And yes, you can do mobile to mobile payments too. And it tracks customer loyalty on the fly with real transactions.

So what happens if you lose your phone? Well, first of all, there’s a password lock for the app. But you can also remove access to your cards from anywhere on the web (again, the numbers aren’t actually stored on the device itself).

MobilePay USA makes money by taking 1 percent of every transaction (which a vendor would pay for). The team notes, this is similar to the way American Express began. You offer a perk at a small premium.

Feedback and Q & A by expert judges Sean Parker, James Slavet, Greg Tseng, and Victoria Randsom (paraphrased):

VR: Are people willing to do this? Both customers and merchants?

A: There are a lot of incentives for users. The payment itself is the first trick pony, but there’s more. We’re just moving into beta — we hope to be fully ready by November. We’re signing up merchants now.

We’re also replacing loyalty cards. What if you don’t have the card? You don’t need it anymore.

GT: I think this is awesome. How are you going to make money?

A: We’re going to get paid per-sale. Every time a sale goes through, we get 1 percent. But there’s more — offers are possible.

SP: I think the technology is interesting. But the question is: will the consumer be able to get it?

JS: Tell us more about the tech team.

A: We have 10 people on the team. We raised about $100,000 to date — we’ve bootstrapped basically everything.

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MobilePayUSA
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Credit Sesame Wants To Demystify And Help Manage Your Personal Credit

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 05:33 PM PDT

If navigating the murky waters of credit scores and debt leaves you scratching your head and wishing someone would just tell you what to do, you’re in luck. Credit Sesame is a new startup launching in private beta today at TechCrunch Disrupt that’s looking to help do just that — give the site access to your financial data, and it will present you with a handful of options, along with bulletpoints explaining why they work for you. If you’d like to try the site out for yourself, head to CreditSesame.com/TechCrunch and use the password OpenSesame.

Credit Sesame doesn’t take long to set up — the company says it takes a couple of minutes — but it does require sensitive information including your social security number (which the site needs in order to access your credit history). That may make some users wary, but the site is aware of potential privacy and security issues, and has a FAQ that talks about how it protects your data here.

Once you’ve entered your information, the site will visualize key data like your credit and debt (it’s clearly taking some design cues from BillShrink and Mint’s pretty graphs). It will also offer recommendations for how you can save money — the company says it analyzes thousands of financial products to determine which are the best fit for each user, and Credit Sesame says it saves an average home owner up to $600 per month. Proposals are based on pre-qualified loans, and Credit Sesame says that it uses the “same pricing engine that top banks use” to find those products.

Q&A:
GT: I get consume value proposition. How are you going to compete with and what’s your advantage vs. Mint, BillShrink, etc.
A: Companies out there like Mint do a great job helping with finances. But what really helps.. most companies lack ingredients. One is consumer intelligence. Second is product intelligence. Our core competence is product intelligence. Analytics that brings it all together.

SP: I think it’s well designed. Hard to get distribution. Broader questions that founders here need to ask themselves: why am I founding a company in the first place. Might be that you want financial independence, build lifestyle business. Third reason which is bad: you think you’ve spent your career in Silicon Valley and highest level status is to be a founder. The founders who fall into first two categories, sometimes lifestyle businesses become incredible industries. Founders see a problem that desperately needs solving. Third class doesn’t usually succeed. I think everyone needs to ask which they are. Not saying you guys are the third.
A: I’m a serial entrepreneur. I sold to a lot of banks and had a good exit. I noticed that banks are great, but their objectives aren’t aligned with consumer’s best interest. When consumers go to a lot branches, they want to know if they should be worried, if there is something they should do different. And the answers they get aren’t sufficient.

VR: What is the user experience. How much info do I need to give to get started. WIth recommendations, how hard is it to do those?
A: Takes two minutes, answer 5-6 questions. Once you enter information we aggregate everything. We refresh that data for you. Our system knows enough about the client/market that if an opportunity arises we’ll present the option and the system can do it for them.

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Credit Sesame
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Lark Will Wake You Silently Without A Jarring Alarm

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 05:26 PM PDT

If your partner has an erratic sleeping schedule, an annoying alarm, or is a perpetual snoozer, you can understand how hard it can be to woken up several times during the night or the morning. Often time after being woken up early or in the middle of a deep sleep, it can be difficult to get back to sleep. Lark, which is launching at TechCrunch Disrupt today, promises to help couples sleep better in the same bed.

Lark’s flagship product, Lark Up, is a revolutionary silent waking system that wakes you silently and naturally. The system involves an iPhone app and a small band that you wear across your wrist while sleeping. You set the iPhone app to the time you need to wake up and the app will transform your phone into a night time alarm clock. The band includes a small device and sensor with blue tooth technology that will vibrate at the time you are supposed to wake up. Plus there’s no more jarring, loud alarms; so your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, or husband won’t be woken up by your alarm.

Founded by Julia Ho, Lark has been working with a Harvard Medical School sleep expert, Dr. Jo Select, to test the app with students; and the app has been producing positive results. Not only are wearers of the device able to wake up from the vibrating technology, but their partners are reporting a better night’s sleep when their sleeping partner is using the vibrating device.

Besides offering a way for users to wake up up without waking up their partner, Lark says that the proprietary vibrating technology promises a more relaxing emergence from a deep slumber. You can pre-order Lark using the code ‘tc2010′ here. The device, which is manufactured in China and expected to ship early next year, costs $99.

Feedback and Q & A by expert judges Sean Parker, James Slavet, Greg Tseng, and Victoria Randsom. I've abbreviated their names, for brevity obviously.

SP: Is this a real product?

A: We fully plan on launching this company. In fact, we just did.

SP: Are you serious?

JS: What about the tech perspective?

A: This uses a different type of technology, a different type of vibration tech that wakes you up.

VR: How many people have sleep problems — what part of the problem is the wake up part?

A: Our first market is busy professional couples that wake up at different times. Once we’ve pinned that down, we’ll focusing on other disruptions of waking up. We’re going to build a platform on top of this to deal with other issues like snoring, the phone ringing in the middle of thie night, etc.

GT: Why is this called Lark?

A: [Ed note: I'm really impressed she actually has an answer] A lark is cheerful morning bird as well as someone who wakes up early as well as bird who woke up Romeo and Juliet. Which is fitting because our product is really about making realiopnships better.

PC: Is it heavy?

A: We took out all the parts that are heavy. So no.

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Voxy Helps You Learn A Language By Text, iPhone, Email And Web

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 05:17 PM PDT

Voxy is a multi-platform way to learn a language “from life.” Voxy uses both the web and mobile text messaging to teach ESL to Spanish speakers through relavent topical content, or things that people are already reading anyways like magazines.

Perhaps the best part about Voxy is that it uses game mechanics like points, number of words collected, or times spent in order  to drive a language learner’s progress and commitment, engaging users who would otherwise be bored and get distracted from the task at hand. Founder Paul Gollash refers to the importance of breaking down language learning into “small bits everyday” so that users can “learn from life” hence Voxy’s personalized curriculum.

A Voxy user can receive story flashcards through  SMS, web/WAP, mobile apps as well as engage in real-time student Q&A, social collaboration. This is ideal for people who want to learn a language during their downtime, for example on a bus or waiting for the train.

Voxy plans on monetizing both by a subscription model as well as  brand tie-ins rewards. Currently self-funded, it hopes to tap into the over $80 billion dollar language learning market by being the only service that allows you to learn a language from your phone.

Feedback and Q & A by expert judges Sean Parker, James Slavet, Greg Tseng, and Victoria Randsom. I've abbreviated their names, for brevity obviously.

VR: This isn’t for beginners?

A: No this actually for people who already know a language, but actually need motivation to continue their learning.

SP: Why would you choose to solve this problem? What about your distribution?

A: I really think that this is the way to learn. Currently the market for ESL services is one million hispanics a day.

JS: What is the secret sauce of the company?

A: Media and technology.

GT: How about revenue monetization?

A: Subscription model. There’s a lot of willingness to pay for these things.

GT: I’m puzzled at what you meant by “being excellent at media and technology”

A: I grew up at a magazine company. Acquiring subscribers is something that I do.

ADstruc, A Marketplace For Outdoor Advertising, Closes $1.1 Million Series A Round

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 04:56 PM PDT

The New York-based startup ADstruc — an online marketplace for outdoor advertising — closed a $1.1 million series a investment led by DFJ Gotham, with participation from RRE, Founder Collective, Jeff Clavier, David Cohen, Kal Vepuri, David Tisch and Social Leverage (Howard Lindzon) today.

The 26-year-old founder and chief executive of ADstruc, John Laramie, developed his auction and listing-based platform through TechStars in Colorado, but relocated and incorporated in New York this year.

According to ADstruc reports, media spending on outdoor advertising in 2009 reached $6 billion. The startup aims to make it easier for existing buyers to find and procure outdoor ad inventory, and to increase the number of buyers of and ad campaigns using outdoor advertising.

"We are going to make buying billboards as easy as buying AdWords on Google,” said Laramie.

The company is working with ad agencies and outdoor advertising businesses like Torrey Group, Circle Graphics and Dentsu to get started. It has not yet sold inventory, but Laramie is eyeing companies known for their outdoor creative like: movie production houses, Verizon, Disney and Coca Cola, Laramie said.

He also half-joked that “ADstruc is trying to convince TechStars to do an outdoor campaign to raise awareness about their new, New York program!”

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Figure Out Your Flying Needs With Superfly

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 04:49 PM PDT

People are obsessed with airline mileage, but it’s really difficult to keep track of  the passwords to the mileage programs you are already involved in let alone the ones that might be advantageous to be a part of.

A “Mint for travel but bigger,” Superfly collects user data like miles balance, elite status, travel expenses, analyzing travel patterns and comparing them to already existing mileage programs to provide users with tailor made travel options.

With the objective of consumer savings, Superfly aggregates travel information from all sides of the traveler spectrum and runs an analysis, plotting out user behavior patterns versus the available rewards programs in attempt to save users money.

The service offers a simple interface to track the total value of your rewards, airlines miles over time, and spending patterns with horizontal lines marking achievement level over time valuable in a space where very few airlines provide you with any decipherable tools to manage your obsession.

This service fulfills a real need, as travel is currently a bigger industry than personal finance, with an estimated 17-22 trillion in unused miles deficit.

Superfly intends to monetize by leveraging its intelligent suggestions and charging credit card companies and airline a referral when users follow their suggestions. Founders Jonathan Meiri, Ted Everson and Yaron Shagal estimate material revenue per user at about $29, even through the service is completely free.

Feedback and Q & A by expert judges Sean Parker, James Slavet, Greg Tseng, and Victoria Randsom. I've abbreviated their names, for brevity obviously.

VR: How frequently do you need to travel for this to be valuable?

A: Business travelers are interesting because their employers pay for the ticket. Hundreds and thousands of dollars to travelers who travel more than twice a a year.

SP: This always about distribution. The challenge that I see hear is how are you going to get access to a large population of consumers. There is a value to a niche audience, but not mass consumer.

A: $30 revenue per user. I can show you my inbox. The reality comes when we prove to the mass consumer that we can save the money.

GT: I’m in the power user category. What is the size of the population?

A: The size of the market is 30 million Americans, which doubles and triples when you consider Europe and Asia.

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Shwowp Wants To Change The Way You Shop

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 04:17 PM PDT

Shopping platform Shwowp aspires to be“a Tripit plus Blippy plus Mint for shopping.” Founded by Internet marketer Tara Hunt, Shwowp (in the same space as RightCliq) attempts to grapple with the issue of all our purchase data being siloed across multiple retailers like Amazon, Bluefly, etc by trying to corral our diverse shopping history into one place.

Shwowp users can make a purchase, forward the receipt or order information to wow@shwowp.com and the service will synch that info to their account. Once there a user can change their own data, view their buying patterns and share information about the shopping experience like how long it took to get to the store, availability, how influenced they were by what their friends were buying and so on and so forth.

Of course the end of goal of this is a serving up a personal RFP in order make shopping data more useful, i.e. provide customers with targeted discounts based on their buying history.

Founder Hunt asserts that currently data is “one sided” and hopes that the fully portable Shwowp platform will make sure that customers really take advantage of their own data and get the shopping experience they needed.

Currently in the friends and family stage of funding, Shwowp plans on making money through affiliate advertising, coupons, opt-in vendor deals, data reporting as well as API usage.  They’re targeting the female market primarily, at $37 million dollars a year.

A: We’re not like Blippy, we’re not a sharing platform in way More interested in signaling part and data portability part. Have an export button on the website.

LL: Leaves me with idea that we want to share what we buy.
A: Our target market is women, because they control 4.3 trillion of spending. And they often shop online and share about products.

JS: I wouldn’t mind sharing my data online as long as I was getting economic benefit.
A: Biggest part is data portability…

JH: Love that you’re thinking big. Practical point, I feel like if you have opportunity to streamline what you’re asking users..
A: We have a lot of steps currently because we’re optimizing for privacy.

DD: I think this idea is deeper than you could convey in six minutes. Data portability, that sort of thing. I think it’s pretty powerful. Getting offers to come to you based on your interests. Would suggest your data is already being shared anyway, you just don’t know it.

JS: Reminds me of end-of-year American Express summary, the thought I could turn that around and get paid for it is compelling.

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