Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

Link to TechCrunch

With Speeksy, Facebook Users Can Meet New People (Just Don’t Call It “Online Dating!”)

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 09:25 AM PST

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How do you meet new people in today’s digital age, without over-exposing yourself the creeps, trolls and spammers? The answer, perhaps, is build a social service on top of Facebook, leveraging your network, your friends of friends and shared interests to form connections with people you don’t know. That’s what the new startup Speeksy is doing. The service is virtualizing the experience of going out to a bar or nightclub by offering an online venue where users can interact, message each other and video chat, while bonding over their shared music playlists.

The startup is similar in spirt to TechCrunch Disrupt winner Shaker, the Facebook app that turns your Facebook profile into a walking avatar, similar to what you would find in a game like The Sims or Second Life. However, unlike Shaker, there are no avatars or virtual worlds involved here.

Instead, when you sign in to Speeksy (a play on the word “Speakeasy,” a nod to the startup’s virtual bar experience), you’re presented with a list of “venues” and people with similar interests to you. The venues can best be thought of as something like Turntable.fm rooms – there’s live music, a playlist, and fellow music lovers. The music, however, comes from SoundCloud and the point of the room is not necessarily to enjoy or discover new music (you can even turn it off), but to meet other people. The music just serves as a tool to facilitate those interactions. Any user can add to the playlist and people can give “props” to tracks they like. It’s like an ice-breaker for the modern age.

Speeksy offers a number of features that allow users to get to know each other, but the main one involves leveraging Facebook profile data. Users are listed as 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree connections based on whether you’re friends, have mutual friends, or have no friends in common, respectively. Speeksy also matches you up with those who share your interests, again, based on Facebook profile data. And you can search and filter this list by a number of things, like location, gender, and various personal traits, like whether someone smokes or not.

Ah, yes. That’s right – at its heart, Speeksy is a new-fangled dating service, built on top of Facebook profiles. But just don’t call it online dating, pleads co-founder Barry Cassidy, a former Adobe engineer who previously worked on Adobe Connect.

“We’re going for the people who are alienated by the social stigma of online dating,” he says. “Even today, something that gets identified as online dating turns off 85% of singles – it’s essentially a dating agency. It’s analogous to going to an office and saying, ‘I’ve really failed in the social environments that I go to, so I’d like to get put into a database to try and get matched with somebody.’”

(Burn! For what it’s worth, I know many happy marriages among friends that arose from online dating, but I agree – it’s not for everyone.)

The other problems with meeting people online, explains Cassidy, involve unwanted attention from undesirables and the static nature of online dating courtship, involving emails that lead to phone calls that lead to real-world meetings. “90% of the time, there’s absolutely no chemistry,” he says. “We wanted to create an environment where people could talk to each other in real-time and see those things that people get attracted to.”

The service offers tons of tools for virtualized flirting, without being overly creepy about it. When you view another’s profile on the service, you can click buttons like “make eye contact,” “send over a drink,” etc. Alternatives to the Facebook “poke,” essentially. You can also click on another user’s interests to add it to your own, e.g., “oh, you like “The Office,” so do I!”  It’s a conversation starter. Plus, you can start a text-based chat, or, if you’re feeling more adventurous, move into a one-on-one video chat.

The virtual venues can hold up to 50 people, all with webcams a-blazing. However, due to technological constraints, you don’t see the webcam view until you hover your cursor over a user’s profile card in the venue’s lists of participants. You can also view a user’s full profile in order to see their live cam feed.

As for keeping out the creepers, the site “gamifies” social interactions, offering rewards for good behavior (engagement, participation) while doling out warning labels to naughty users who get blocked by others on the site. In other words, if you misbehave, act rude or crude, you’ll strike out and be ignored, just like in real life.

The startup, founded in early 2011, has raised $60,000 in seed funding from its founders and angel investors, Gerad Cassidy and Michael Dwyer, CTO Exigen Insurance Solutions. Speeksy’s other co-founder is Tom Tsatsos, who formerly ran his own web agency that build apps and sites for clients.

The site is launching into private beta today, so you’ll need an invite to get in. There are a couple of thousand of invites for TechCrunch readers tucked away behind this link. In testing, the “beta” label definitely applied –  there were bugs, odd design choices, and frankly, the overall experience could use a bit of polish.

Speeksy, it should be noted, will also soon to face a fierce competitor, the well-funded Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker creation known as Airtime, which is even more of a direct threat than Shaker.

Aren’t you worried about Airtime?, we asked Cassidy.

“I definitely had nervous moments when I heard more about what they’re doing, especially the fact that they’re bringing in social graph information,” he says. “But the more I think about it, I think it’s actually be good for us. There may not be just one winner in this space.”

Kleiner Perkins Debuts First Engineering Fellows Class

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 09:00 AM PST

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Last year, venture firm Kleiner Perkins debuted its plans for a summer internship program to place top engineering talent from colleges at the firm’s portfolio companies. The benefit is two-fold: students get to work at the startup level, are mentored (and have the prestige of Kleiner Perkins on their resume) and startups get access to young engineering talent. Today, Kleiner is debuting the first inaugural class of the fellow program.

As Kleiner explains, the goal of the paid fellowship is to give engineering students the experience of working on tough technical problems at startups. Fellows are placed at Kleiner portfolio startups and are also invited to exclusive events at Twitter and Zynga, where they can network.

In total, 25 fellows were chosen from nearly a thousand applicants from over 100 universities. The universities the class of fellows are joining from are Franklin Olin, Rice, Princeton, UPenn, Carnegie Mellon, Brown, UCSD, University of Michigan, Duke, and University of Kentucky. Sample summer projects include working on an energy efficiency insight algorithm on Opower’s data platform, and developing graph analysis to provide data insight that will drive product designs at Klout.

Kleiner portfolio companies hosting fellows include Klout, Path, Chegg, Nest, Zaarly, One Kings Lane, Opower, Flipboard, Crittercism, Nebula, Zynga and Shopkick.

The Kleiner Fellows program isn’t the first of its kind among venture firms. True Ventures launched the Entrepreneurs Corps (TEC) a few years ago, which also undergraduate students in the fund's early-stage portfolio companies for paid summer internships.

And I expect we’re going to see more firms launch similar programs for their portfolio companies to access talent. Many of these smaller startups could not afford to recruit at colleges and/or compete with large companies like Google, Microsoft or Facebook for college talent. And the firms are able to help college students gain access to working at lesser known startups.

BREAKING: SV’s Sagest Soothsayers Sport Sassy Socks (Plus A Contest)

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 08:57 AM PST

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If you’re just waking up out of your post Super Bowl stupor, a crumble of Doritos dusting your chest and beer cans littering the coffee table, floor, and dog, you’ll be excused for not knowing that all the greatest entrepreneurs in the world (and Om Malik) are wearing colorful socks. See, apparently dudes in the Valley wear sassy socks. It’s something that’s done. But why? Well, apparently wearing colorful socks helps you stand out in the dressed-down, always-on, loosey-goosey, fancy-dancing world of Silicon Valley. In a land where no one can see your bespoke suit with working cuff buttons, how are you supposed to show your power? With socks, people. With socks.

In fact, fancy socks are like a gang sign.

I have been in meetings where people look down and notice my socks, and there is this universal sign, almost like a gang sign, where they nod and pull up their pant leg a little to show off their socks," said Hunter Walk, 38, a director of product management at YouTube, whose favorite pair is yellow, aqua and orange striped.

OK, so now you know how to get funded: wear funny socks. But where can you get those socks? You’re in luck. The guys at 80stees emailed me to offer a set of every sock on this page to two lucky TechCrunch readers. That’s 16 pair each for two lucky ducks. How would you wear them? Well, think about the use case. Headed out to talk to Sequoia? Wear the Batman socks. Interviewing a programmer? Wear the Wonder Woman socks. Pivoting? Wear the Superman socks. Easy.

To win, comment below describing what you secretly wear to meetings for good luck. Thanks to 80sTees for helping all us nerds stay at the height of fashion.



Honeywell vs Nest: When The Establishment Sues Silicon Valley

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 08:34 AM PST

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Honeywell filed a multi-patent infringement lawsuit against Nest Labs and Best Buy yesterday. The suit alleges that Nest Labs is infringing on seven Honeywell patents. Honeywell is not seeking licensing fees. The consumer electronic conglomerate wants Nest Labs to cease using the technology and is actually looking to collect damages caused by the infringement. Damages? Bullshit. This is about killing the competition.

This lawsuit hit Silicon Valley and the tech world hard when it broke Monday morning. Nest Labs is the Valley’s star child right now. The company, founded by the godfather of the iPod, started in a Palo Alto garage just over two years ago and successfully disrupted a stale industry so hard that it seems to have resulted in a major lawsuit. The company won a Best of Innovations Award at CES 2012 and, just last week, a Crunchie for Best New Device. People love Nest. And now most of those same people hate Honeywell.

Honeywell has every right to protect their intellectual property. In their defensive, Nest Labs is clearly riffing off of Honeywell’s iconic round thermostat design. Honeywell’s T87 thermostat is undeniably, instantly recognizable as a thermostat. But so is a Kleenex box. And a Frisbee. Shame on Nest Labs if the Nest Learning Thermostat was intentionally developed from Honeywell’s intellectual property. But from where I sit Nest Labs is simply trying to advance the thermostat using novel features in a familiar design.


The suit alleges Nest Labs infringes on several of Honeywell’s patents involving thermostats. Several, like 7159789 and 7159790, involve the round hardware mechanism, rotating dial and center screen placement. Others, namely 7142948 and 7634504, covers the user interface. Natural language installer setup for controller (7634504) allows for a graphical user interface that sets up the device through a series of simple questions like, “On weekdays, is someone home all day?” and “What is a comfortable sleeping temperature in the summer?” You see, the Nest also has a friendly user interface. Apparently Honeywell is the only one allowed to have a round, rotating idiot-proof thermostat.

Honeywell has been selling thermostats for years but none, including the company’s very pricey Prestige line, match the Nest’s build quality or user interface. I spent a considerable amount of time shopping for a thermostat last year. Out of the six or so Honeywell models I tried, all were cheaply made and featured piss-poor UIs. I literally punched my wall after becoming so frustrated with one of the Prestige models.

The difference between a Honeywell thermostat and the Nest is striking. One is a cheap, clearly mass-produced hunk of plastic and the other is something you would be proud to own. This feeling is exactly why this lawsuit reeks of greed. Honeywell is embarrassed, perhaps even slightly frightened, by an upstart that is managing to get people excited about thermostats.

Honeywell clearly knows what they’re doing. While it’s easy to throw up your hands in disgust, Honeywell is operating within their rights. A quick run-through of the patents revels that the Nest Learning Thermostat is seemingly infringing on all seven. Some are trivial like the four aforementioned patents but the others are a bit more substantial and detailed. Patent 7476988 Power Stealing Control Devices lists the process required to leech the thermostat’s power from another source and store it in a battery, capacitor or the like. But it’s not my job to decide which claim has merit. It’s the hands of the courts now.

I spoke with Matthew Mitchell, Esq. of Mitchell Law PLLC regarding Honeywell’s claims. He pointed out that Nest could have simply overlooked the patents listed here. Or, as he assumes is more likely, the company was aware of these and already have a litigation strategy ready to argue that the patents are invalid.

Patents are intended to protect non-obvious ideas while advancing general innovation. Mitchell later pointed out, “Patents are the great equalizer. Patents enable garage inventors and small startups (some of which are referred to derogatorily as: non-practicing entities or 'trolls') to compete with the big boys like Honeywell.” If the case was reversed, if Nest was suing Honeywell, the tech press’ knee-jerk reaction would have been different, but still likely siding with the little guy.

It will be up to the courts whether Honeywell’s claims have merit and the company is due damages, but unfortunately the only winner in this case will be the legal teams. Nest Labs will likely spend money earmarked for R&D/marketing on a defense. Honeywell’s image is tarnished.

But worse yet, the consumer will lose the most if a novel startup like Nest Labs is sued out of existence.

Spreecast Extends Reach Of Social Video Platform With Embed Feature

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:59 AM PST

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Spreecast, a social video platform that lets people broadcast together, is adding the ability to embed ‘spreecasts’ on their blogs, free of charge.

The brainchild of StubHub co-founder and investor Jeff Fluhr, Spreecast can be used publicly or privately to create interactive, social online video broadcasts. Up to 4 people at a time can be face-to-face, streaming their conversation live while hundreds of others can watch, chat, and participate by submitting comments and questions to those on-screen. Viewers can also request to join on camera, while producers of the Spreecast can manage the action. Spreecast is also integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ so that producers and creators can broadcast their conversations to their friends, followers, circles, contacts and connections.

For Spreecast, adding the ability to embed these video broadcasts is another way to let people take part in the conversations happening on the platform. Spreecasts can be embedded with a simple line of code in any blog or post. The embedded video comes in multiple sizes and includes a two-way video screen, built-in chat room, customizable Twitter stream, and Facebook Comments.

We’ve actually embedded a conversation between Chris Kelly, the former Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook, and 4INFO founder Zaw Thet below (which will start as 10:30 PT).

Spreecast has raised $4 million in funding from Frank Biondi, former CEO of Viacom; Gordon Crawford, media and technology investor at The Capital Research Group and Edward Scott, Jr., founder of BEA Systems.

VooMote Zapper Turns Your iThing Into A Universal A/V Remote

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:46 AM PST

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Did your parents ever tell you how they switched television channels back in the day? You know, before the remote?

They had to get up, and walk the twelve feet to the television set, turn some knob, and repeat this process until they found something worth viewing (most likely a commercial celebrating our addiction to nicotine and alcohol). But things have changed quite a bit since then.

In fact, we are at the point of throwing away our remotes for something a bit more integrated. Enter the VooMote Zapper, by Zero1.tv.

There are plenty of universal remote offerings out there in the world, and the VooMote Zapper joins the ranks as an iDevice add-on. Simply plug the Zapper into the 30-pin port at the bottom of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod, and download the free app. After the initial setup, you’ll be in complete control of your entire home entertainment system right from your iDevice.

The dongle comes in a bevy of color flavors and costs $70. However, a cover for the iPhone will cost an extra $10, while an iPad cover will force you to cough up an extra $20.

The VooMote Zapper is available now at Apple.com, and you can download the VooMote Zapper app from the Apple App Store.



Exceptional Acquires Error Tracking Application Airbrake

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:40 AM PST

Airbrake_ The app error app

Web app error tracking startup Exceptional has acquired fellow error tracking application and competitor, Airbrake, from web design and development company thoughtbot. Financial terms of the acquisition were not released.

Simply put, Airbrake tracks errors in web apps. The app will collects errors generated by a variety of applications, and aggregates the results for review by developers. Airbrake’s service is used by a number of high-profile companies including Groupon, eBay Square and AT&T.

Together, the two companies have tracked over 5 billion errors since 2008. With a combined 75,000 customer base and counting, these two error handling companies handle over 30,000 reports per minute.

Dimension Data Buys Telecom Expense Management Software Maker Xigo

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:24 AM PST

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Telecom expense management (TEM) solutions company Xigo, which Greg likened to a Billshrink for large companies, has been acquired by one of its partners, IT services and solutions provider Dimension Data for an undisclosed sum.

Dimension Data says the acquisition of Xigo, formerly known as Invoice Insight, will enable them to offer enterprise customers an integrated cost optimization solution for spend analysis, sourcing, provisioning and invoice processing.

The company adds that it will focus on increasing Xigo’s market share in the United States and roll out the services to other countries “over time”.

Dave Spofford, CEO of Xigo, will continue to lead the Xigo team and report to Dimension Data's Americas CEO Jere Brown.

Dwolla Raises $5 Million Series B From Union Square Ventures & Others

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:23 AM PST

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Disruptive payments network Dwolla confirmed today it has raised $5 million in Series B financing in a round led by Union Square Ventures. Also participating in the round are Village Ventures, Thrive Capital, Artists and Instigators and Paige Craig of Betterworks. As a part of the deal, Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures will join Dwolla’s board.

The company says that additional funding will be used to continue product development, expand its API and “maybe buy some Doritos.” (Yeah, you gotta love these guys).

Dwolla, which offers both an online and mobile payments platform, is primarily a new payments network, not a tool for enabling payments through the existing credit card network. In other words, it’s not the new PayPal. It’s an all-new payment option.  The idea behind the company is to rethink what a payments network would look like if it was built today using web technologies. By eliminating the legacy issues, fraud and overhead, it can lower costs for end users and merchants alike.

Explains founder Ben Milne, “Dwolla’s network isn’t just about mobile wallets and sending money to your friends with Facebook, it’s about creating an entirely new network architecture to disrupt the $332 trillion electronic payments landscape.”

The company has had a busy year, rolling out new features and services like Spots, FiSync, Proxi, GRiD and Instant, among other things.

Over the course of 2011, Des Moines-based Dwolla says it increased its userbase by 3,200% to over 80,000 accounts and increased its merchant community by 3,000% to over 7,500 accounts. It now processes between $30 and $50 million per month in transactions, both online and on mobile. Due to its lower fees, users end up saving 2%-8% over traditional transactions as well as the typical 30 cent processing fee.

Last month, BetaBeat reported that Dwolla was raising $10 million in financing, but today’s confirmation of the Series B is at half that.

DailyWorth Teams Up With Mint.com To Help Women Turn Financial Advice Into Action

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:17 AM PST

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In March of last year, DailyWorth, the personal finance community for women, raised $850K from Robin Hood Ventures, Eric Schmidt's TomorrowVentures, Howard Lindzon's Social Leverage, 500 Startups, and more. And, in January, the startup added $2 million more.

Not unlike its cohort LearnVest — which has raised a healthy $25 million for a platform that helps women organize their finances and learn how to become financially savvy — DailyWorth launched with the mission to become a go-to resource for tips and information on financial literacy and money management, geared towards a female audience. Yet, unlike LearnVest, DailyWorth focused on content — specifically in the form of a daily newsletter, which tends to range in subject matter from how to organize your finances to tax tips to advice on the best ways to save. (Example below.)

Behind six-time entrepreneur (and founder and CEO) Amanda Steinberg and the editorial lead of MP Dunleavey, a former personal finance columnist for the New York Times and a contributor to Money magazine, DailyWorth’s newsletter has gone on to attract over 225,000 subscribers in the U.S., and financial institutions like ING and H&R Block have joined as sponsors. And seeing as DailyWorth has been called “the Daily Candy for personal finance,” it was a sign of validation when Andrew Russell, formerly of Pilot Group and investor in email companies like Daily Candy and Thrillist, joined the startup as an independent board member in January.

Of course, when it comes to free personal finance services that offer all the essentials, like the ability to aggregate financial accounts in one place, set budgets, track goals, etc., Intuit-owned Mint.com is arguably one of the best-known names, and is arguably a service by which many in the space are compared. Many sites have been tagged the “Mint.com” of dog enthusiasts, etc etc. Niche-ifying the successful in July of last year, LearnVest launched a personal money center with a suite of personal finance options, aiming to bring the best parts of Mint to a female-only audience.

Today, DailyWorth is, in a way, following suit, except that it’s going straight to the source. To kickstart readers’ monetary momentum, the startup is partnering with Mint.com in an effort to provide a more robust online platform for personal finance tools and information — to women. Essentially, this is exactly what LearnVest has been trying to do in building its new set of tools, but in partnering with the personal finance leader, DailyWorth hopes to give itself a leg up.

The deal brings DailyWorth’s growing audience to Mint.com, and in turn the two companies are launching three new exclusive projects to give DailyWorth readers access to both content (financial advice) and the financial management tools available through Mint.com.

In online personal finance, capturing a female audience (most often the budgeting decision–makers) is a key to success for both startups and growing businesses. So, combining DailyWorth’s advice with Mint’s ability to turn that advice into action gives women a potentially powerful financial tool. “This is crucial for everyone,” says the DailyWorth CEO, “but particularly women, who still lag behind in earning power and overall lifetime savings.”

Considering Mint.com currently has nearly 8 million users and is tracking upwards of $1 trillion in transactions, this is a big play for DailyWorth, as it will now begin offering realtime demonstrations for its readers on how to take control of their financial lives. For starters, this will happen through the launch of three new DailyWorth/Mint joint programs. First is the “Emergency Savings Challenge,” a 90-day program designed to empower women to save toward their emergency funds, boosted by the ability to track their progress on Mint. Readers will also be able to enter for a chance to get their savings doubled.

Then there’s “The Money Fix,” in which DailyWorth’s proprietary editorial series pairs readers with national money experts, who will help them work toward their financial goals. Participants will be able to enact their action plan using the tools available on Mint.com.

Lastly, the companies will today launch “The Mini Fix,” a series of free webinars, which aim to help readers get better acquainted with Mint’s tools and features, as well as how to best achieve their goals using the prior two programs.

Obviously, both Mint and DailyWorth are hoping that this partnership and its new programs will be a win-win for both businesses. Mint.com will now have direct access to DailyWorth’s community of 225K subscribers, a ready-made audience (of new customers) looking to better manage their finances, while DailyWorth boosts its own offerings by giving its readers direct access and education on how to use Mint’s straightforward personal finance tools.

By getting in the side door, DailyWorth saves itself from having to build its own personal finance management platform (and a potential Mint competitor), while buddying up with one of the leaders in the space. All in the name of giving women a self-identifying, like-minded community on top of an established financial service. DailyWorth has smartly positioned itself as a resource to help women earn more (and save more), not as a lifestyle magazine, which generally have a penchant for encouraging people to spend, but instead, as a branded email newsletter. It seems the best of both worlds.

What’s more, this comes on top of DailyWorth launching CreateWorth, a newsletter for female entreprneurs that focuses on the financial nuts and bolts of building and scaling a profitable business.

For more, check out DailyWorth at home here.

Lumia 900 Goes Up For Pre-Order In Microsoft Stores

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:11 AM PST

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The Lumia 800 is an excellent device, and if you’re new to the world of smartphones, the Lumia 710 is quite excellent as well. But those of us who’ve been excited about the Nokia/Microsoft partnership since the very beginning have been waiting for a flagship — a real showstopper: the Lumia 900.

And while we still don’t have exact word on pricing and availability, it would seem that employees at the Microsoft Store are offering pre-orders of the 900 in both black and white.

Before today, we didn’t even know whether or not a white Lumia 900 would be an option, but after seeing a pearly white 800 and hearing these reports it appears that white is on the table.

$25 secures your spot on the list for Nokia’s LTE-capable flagship, though how much more you’ll have to pay for the phone is unclear. We’ve heard rumors that the Lumia 900 would be at an aggressive $100 price point, but Slashgear reports that Microsoft Store employees are debating pricing between the $150 and $200 region.

We expect to see the Lumia 900 in March.



$199 Motorola Droid 4 To Grace Verizon Shelves On February 10

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:05 AM PST

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It’s been nearly a month since Verizon officially spilled the beans on the QWERTY-packing, LTE-sporting Motorola Droid 4, and now we finally have a release date to go with it. According to the nation’s largest wireless provider, the oft-delayed Droid 4 is due to hit sales channels on February 10 complete with a $199 price tag.

Though its slimmer brethren have enjoyed most of the limelight lately, the Droid 4 is still a welcome addition to the Verizon lineup as their second LTE device with a full physical keyboard.

While it doesn’t yet run Ice Cream Sandwich, the rest of its feature list — 1.2 GHZ dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8-megapixel rear camera, and 4-inch qHD display — make for an attractive little package. Additional features like government-grade encryption, a sprinkling of enterprise-friendly apps, and support for Motorola’s Lapdock 500 only sweeten the deal, especially if you’re looking to dump that work BlackBerry for something a bit more robust.

To celebrate the release of the Droid 4 (and a buy-one-get-one promotion on the Droid RAZR family), Verizon is also reviving their double-data promotion, so penny-pinching phone shoppers may want to jump on the deal before it disappears again. Of course, if Verizon keeps doing what they’re doing, there’s a real chance we’ll see that double data promo rear its head once another noteworthy LTE smartphone comes down the pipeline.

Microsoft Invests In 24/7 For Customer Service Software

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 07:03 AM PST

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Microsoft announced this morning a new agreement with 24/7 Inc. , a company that designs intuitive customer experiences. As a part of the deal, Microsoft will merge its interactive self-service assets (meaning people, clients and technologies), into 24/7 Inc. The deal also includes an R&D partnership, long-term IP licensing and Microsoft taking an equity stake in 24/7, Inc.

According to the companies, the purpose of the new partnership is to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service businesses. Today’s customers are looking to interact with businesses through many channels – web, mobile, social media and even the living room TV – which is what’s encouraging this move.

24/7 Inc. is the maker of what it calls a “Predictive Experience (PX)” platform, which delivers customer experiences online and on mobile, and offers speech and live chat software. To do so, it leverages large-scale data analytics to try and predict what customers want in order to better serve them. The solution is then sold to businesses looking for a self-service voice response solution. Some of its current customers include Avis Budget Group, Ovum and United Airlines.

Going forward, 24/7 Inc. will use Microsoft’s TellMe speech and natural language technologies in its customer service solutions. Those solutions will also be integrated with Windows Phone, Bing and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

You may remember TellMe, acquired for $800 million in 2007, as the technology that powers Windows Phone’s voice recognition, but it also powers Bing Voice Search for mobile, Xbox  voice recognition in Kinect,  Windows 7, Ford SYNC and KIA UVO, among other things.

According to All About Microsoft, some subset of the 400 or so TellMe employees are being shifted to 24/7, along with Microsoft’s IVR assets, but Microsoft would not disclose the exact number. The cloud speech service part of TellMe, however, will remain with Microsoft.

Terms of the deal and the size of the equity stake were not provided.

Pledge Your Android Allegiance With The Andru MicroUSB Charger

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 06:20 AM PST

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There’s no shortage of Android swag floating around out there — Android-themed watch anyone? — but this thing is probably one of the more useful gifts for the Android devotee in your life. Take it from me: of all the AC adapters floating around TechCrunch's New Jersey headquarters (a.k.a my home), none are quite as charming as Andru here.

Aside from being able to charge your gadgets with aplomb (at which point his beady eyes light up), relentless fidgeters like me can also spin his little arms around. And when Andru isn't in use, feel free to give him a pair of legs by slipping on that bright green prong cover.

Really, what better way to pledge your allegiance to Google than by making sure the power that runs into your Android device first runs though a small green robot?

Alright, so Andru isn’t exactly the first Android-themed charger we’ve seen, but it certainly seems to be a nicer option than some of the alternatives. Those of you who feel the compulsive urge to fill your home or workspace with geeky tchotchkes can pick up an Andru from Gen for $25, which is still probably less than a bog-standard microUSB charger at your local big box store.

RootSmart Android Malware May Be Able To Sneak By Google’s New Bouncer

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 06:11 AM PST

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Remember that Bouncer Google put in the Android Market to act as a goalie for all potential malware attacks?

It would seem that Google’s Bouncer doesn’t catch everything as Professor Xuxian Jiang, the same guy who discovered dozens of other Android malware attacks, has found yet another exploit called RootSmart.

RootSmart works very similarly to a proof-of-concept app built by Jon Oberheide, by “dynamically fetching the GingerBreak root exploit from a remote server and then executing it to escalate its privilege.” This basically means that a malicious RootSmart app installs itself on the device with virtually no malicious code whatsoever, and the code is then fed to the app/device from remote servers.

Since Bouncer works by scanning for known bits of malicious code, it makes RootSmart a very difficult bit of malware to find. However, RootSmart has not been found within the official Android Market thus far. Still, double check your permissions when downloading an app and make sure to read customer reviews.

We’ve reached out to Google for a comment on RootSmart and will get back to you as soon as we hear something.



Accel, SV Angel, Y Combinator Put $1.5M In Online Bank Payments Platform GoCardless

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 06:00 AM PST

gocardless

If you’ve ever set up an automatic ‘Bill Pay’ feature on your bank account to pay off your utility and cable bills, then you’ve taken advantage of a nifty feature called an ‘interbank transfer’, also known as an ‘Automated Clearing House’ payment. Once they’re set up, they tend to be very convenient — the amount of the bill is automatically deducted from your account, saving you the hassle of having to write yet another check (or fill out another online form) each month. Merchants benefit from this system as well, because their fees are significantly lower than those that are charged by the credit card companies.

Thing is, this feature is typically only available for paying bills from big companies — it’s rare to see a smaller online merchant that’s offering these automatic transfers, because the process for them to set it up is complicated and costly. Until now. Y Combinator-backed startup GoCardless is launching today as a UK-based service that allows smaller merchants to easily set up interbank transfers for customers.

Part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2011 class, GoCardless was founded in 2010 by Oxford graduates Hiroki Takeuchi, Tom Blomfield and Matt Robinson. GoCardless is also announcing a $1.5 million round led by Accel Partners, Passion Capital, SV Angel, Start Fund, and Y Combinator. Proceeds will go towards building out the team and product, and expanding the merchant base.

The service is offering a REST API that allows smaller merchants and companies to easily integrate these automated transfers into their sites for one-time and recurring payments. By bypassing the credit card network, GoCardless is able to offer the service for one-third to one-fourth of the cost of most network-based payment options — the fees charged are around 1 percent (but will never reach higher than 2₤ per transaction, no matter the amount).

As the startup explains to me, interbank transfers are commonly used in the UK and Europe to pay bills from giant companies, like your gas or phone bills. But each of these payment applications had to be custom-developed by a consultant, and negotiated individually with each bank — which is an impossible task for most small businesses.

GoCardless has spent the past year speaking and negotiating with banks, doing all the requisite legwork for broad approval. And, aside from the lower fees, another advantage of interbank transfers is that merchants don’t need to worry about credit cards expiring (which is a huge problem with recurring or subscription payments) and there is no need to deal with PCI compliance.

For consumers, GoCardless makes it quick and easy to make payments. After the initial sign up, users can authorize future payments anywhere GoCardless is offered with just one click. The company has also created a dashboard where users can easily manage all of their payments made via their bank accounts, giving them more control over their online spending.

Since launching a beta product in late 2011, GoCardless has already integrated with over 300 merchants and is growing quickly. The startup has over 1,000 merchants in the UK who are on a wait-list. For example, Kashflow, an online accounting service for SMEs, integrated with GoCardless to help its customers collect money. Other users include SaaS companies and those who charge for digital content.

Interestingly, Dwolla is also doing something similar in the US, allowing an easier way to accept payments (and reduce fees) for merchants. One advantage GoCardless has in its favor across the pond is that it is fairly commonplace to pay via interbank transfer in the UK when it comes to major company bills.

SocialFlow Opens The Floodgates

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 06:00 AM PST

Socialflow

Brands love marketing across social media, but it is a little like TV advertising in that it is hard to measure how effective it is. Sure, you can count retweets, likes, and Klout scores, but how does that translate into real engagement with a brand or actual spending? SocialFlow is trying to answer these questions, and in the process is growing like crazy.

“I don't know who put the call out to put money into social media, but it is out there,” says CEO Frank Speiser. A year ago, Socialflow had two employees. Today, it has 34. “We have 5,500 leads active and qualified,” says Speiser. “I just need people to work the phones.”

SocialFlow already supports 2,000 paying accounts, everything from brands to media sites to ecommerce. They use SocialFlow as a dashboard to manage what messages they Tweet or put on their Facebook page and when those messages go out. The betaworks company raised $7 million last summer.

SocialFlow’s algorithms try to figure out when a company’s social audience will be most receptive to a particular message based on the content of that message, and then it automatically Tweets it out or creates a status update on the company’s Facebook page. SocialFlow then ties these messages back into business goals by measuring the conversion rate of each message, such as clicks to a website as measured by Google Analytics.

“We think it is the first product that optimizes for conversion through the funnel,” says Speiser. “It completes the loop. The reason you want a million followers is because you want 10,000 people to do something for you.”

After about a year adding accounts through a limited beta, SocialFlow is launching today to anyone who wants to try it out on a self-serve basis with pricing at $99/month for each account. It supports Twitter, Facebook, Google Analytics, and Omniture. One new feature is an Attention Score between 0 and 100 which attempts to measure how receptive your audience is at any given time to a particular message. The opportunity to engage audiences through social media can be fleeting. SocialFlow helps brands optimize their messages in realtime.



MeetingBurner Debuts Sleek, Webinar Platform To Rival WebEx

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 05:59 AM PST

meeting

Because I live in Chicago, I tend to conduct a lot of demos and meetings with startups and companies over webinar products like GoToMeeting or WebEx. While they get the job done for the most part, the UI is clunky and slow. Today, MeetingBurner is releasing its sleek, fast, and easy-to-use remote meeting product to the public. And the first 200 signups here will receive a free MeetingBurner Pro account.

MeetingBurner, which is exiting beta today, offers a download-free interface lets participants join a meeting via a link sent to their email. Not only is it the load time fast, but the interface is simple and easy to use. Meeting attendees have the option of joining via phone or Skype. Administrators can record meetings, and share on YouTube with a click.

One compelling feature is the meeting temperature option, which allows participants to rate the meeting as it is taking place. Admins can see instant data from participants to see how they are faring and adjust accordingly. Other bells and whistles include the ability to charge attendees directly from the registration screen via PayPal, and iPhone, iPad and Android apps to view meetings.

MeetingBurner offers a free version, which allows for up to 15 participants in online meetings, an integrated phone conference line, email support, and no ads. The pro-version ($39.95 a month) includes support for up to 50 participants, full telephone support, meeting recording, enhanced security and more. And MeetingBurner Premier ($99.95 a month) allows for up to 1000 participants, telephone support, autopilot meetings, PayPal integration, meeting analytics, and more.

MeetingBurner also faces competition from Fuze Meeting.



Acer Comes After Former CEO Gianfranco Lanci For Breach Of Non-Compete

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 05:33 AM PST

Gianfranco-Lanci

Good morning, and welcome to our Tuesday edition of People Suing Each Other. In the far corner, we have the number four PC maker in the world, Acer, based out of Taiwan; and in the other corner we have Acer former CEO Gianfranco Lanci, based out of Italy, who resigned in February of 2011 after being with the company since 2007.

The beef? Well, according to the Financial Times, Mr. Lanci signed a non-compete contract with Acer that was meant to last a full year after his resignation. However, Lanci instead hopped on the Lenovo train in September (about seven months after leaving Acer) as a consultant. Shortly after, he was appointed the head of Lenovo’s Europe, Middle East and Africa businesses last month.

Between Lanci’s rise to the top at Acer and his transition to Lenovo, Acer was the number two PC maker in the world. Now? That spot would be filled with Lenovo, as Acer has dropped to number four.

Before leaving Acer, Lanci had a clear vision for the company that he believes would’ve worked. The focus should have been on building up engineering at the firm by acquiring talent in both the hardware and software departments. At the same time, he saw the transition to mobile as an imminent one and knew the firm would have to build on that level. That inevitably means that Acer would’ve had to not only push the brand out to other parts of the world, but it would, in fact, have to source talent from those other parts too.

To Acer investors, this sounded like a “de-Taiwanization” of the company, reports AllThingsD. But Lanci contends that if his vision had come to fruition over at Acer, the company would’ve grown to be a $30 billion company, bringing in over a third of its sales from smartphones and tablets by 2015.

Instead Acer spent 2010 missing on its quarterly earnings, and paying $150 million for unsold inventory in Europe. Now the company is saying “We believe Mr. Lanci has clearly breached the terms of the non-compete agreement he entered into willingly… We believe we have a very robust case.”

Meanwhile, In Europe … (Fits.me, Appoxee, Heverest.ru, HitFox, Populis)

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 03:16 AM PST

Flag of European Union

Here’s a roundup of recent stories on TechCrunch Europe:

— Internet publishing company Populis is expanding its network operations to South America with the acquisition of Cidade Internet, a popular Brazilian Web portal. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

— Moscow-based Heverest.ru, an online retailer of sportswear, leisure and travel goods, has scored $4.3 million in financing from an unnamed “large” Russian investment fund and previous backer eVenture Capital Partners, bringing its total raised to $6.7 million.

— Fits.me, the Estonian “biorobotics virtual fitting room” startup for e-commerce clothing retailers and shoppers, has been around for a while. We first covered them in 2010 when they secured €1.3 million, taking their total cash to €2.6 million.

They’ve now taken another €1.5 million, taking their funding to €4.1 million. Fits.me lets customers “try on” clothing before buying from online clothes retailers.

— Berlin-based game deals provider HitFox has purchased Chili Entertainment, thus adding the latter’s game advertising network ad2games to its own game marketing portfolio. Chili Entertainment was previously majority-owned by Gameforge, but the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

— Israeli startup Appoxee has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from early-stage investment firm Cyhawk Ventures, and has opened its gates to all.
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