Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

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You and This YouTube Video Can Stop A Warlord: KONY 2012

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 08:57 AM PST

Stop Kony

Joseph Kony is one of world’s worst war criminals. By using the Internet to make him famous, he can be brought to justice. The Invisible Children project’s goal is to reach 20 culture makers including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates and 12 policy makers including John Kerry and Mitt Romney with the message that Kony must be stopped.

It’s working. Currently 4 of the global Twitter trending topics are about the mission to prevent Kony from abducting more children and turning them into soldiers and sex slaves. The mission starts with watching this video:

If the video is too long to watch now, view this trailer and come back later.

Essentially, Ugandan military forces need advisors and technology to track Kony in the jungle. Obama
has devoted resources, but they’ll be withdrawn if there’s not mass public support. As the project’s founder Jason Russell explains in the video “the problem is 99% of the planet doesn’t know who he is. If they knew, Kony would have been stopped long ago.”

Strife in Uganda is a more nuanced issue than the video explains. Uganda is in fact strategically important to the US, and there are others than Kony responsible, but the quality of life for a whole region can be improved by removing Kony.

The Invisible Children project is a technology story because it’s using modern connectivity to make the world’s leaders listen to the world’s people. While once the mainstream media had to get involved, now the combined power of millions through the Internet can have an even bigger impact. This is another coming of age moment for YouTube, for Twitter, and for society. It’s time to use our clicks to take a stand.

Visit Invisible Children to learn more and join the movement. (Excuse the site if it loads slowly, the whole planet it getting involved)



Sprint Could Kill Their Partnership With LightSquared Next Week

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 08:47 AM PST

lightsquared

Aspiring wireless carrier LightSquared has seen better days — they've had their FCC approval for a network rollout revoked, slashed their work force by 45%, and lost their CEO in just over a month's time. 2012 isn’t shaping up to be a banner year for the beleaguered company, but according to a report from Bloomberg, LightSquared is on the verge of losing Sprint’s support as critical network partner too.

The news of Sprint looking to bail out of the deal shouldn’t come as much of a shock to LightSquared, as Sprint essentially issued them a six-week extension/ultimatum at the end of January. If LightSquared could win approval from the FCC then the deal would continue as planned, but with only a few days left on the clock and no regulatory victories to show for it, the deal is expected to go sour as early as next week.

Sprint and LightSquared kicked off their official partnership in July 2011, with Sprint offering up 11 years worth of access to their spectrum in exchange for $9 billion in cash, $4.5 billion in service credits, and first crack at LightSquared’s satellite-oriented wireless network. At the time, it seemed like a standard win-win: LightSquared gets to offer Sprint’s 3G service in addition to their own 4G offerings, and Sprint gets in on the ground floor of a new LTE network as their relationship with Clearwire began to fizzle out.

Of course, the deal hinged on LightSquared being able to nab regulatory approval for their network tech in the first place. Things looked peachy for a while as the FCC gave them the a conditional go-ahead, but further testing showed that LightSquared’s use of the L-Band radio spectrum caused significant interference with GPS receivers that rely on an adjacent radio band. The FCC revoked their approval since LightSquared couldn’t meet the required conditions, and, well, here we are.

According to a recent securities filing, Sprint will have to shell out $74 million to LightSquared if they indeed axe the deal. While I’m sure the cash infusion would be a welcome one, it would also mean that LightSquared has one less partner at their side as they try to make their network dreams a reality.

What’s Next For Google Play? Audiobooks And Magazines

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 07:59 AM PST

Audio books - Google Play Help

Yesterday, Google announced the launch of Google Play, a rebranded Android Market which consolidates all of Google’s media offerings, including apps, music, movies and e-books, into one portal. But it appears that Google’s ambitions to create its own iTunes-like experience won’t stop there. In the Help Center for the new Google Play, empty pages titled “Audio Books” as well as “Magazines and journals” have appeared, hinting at Google’s plans into its future content offerings.

The Audio Books page was first spotted by unofficial Google news site Google Operating System, which also discovered two genres for audiobooks listed on the site (“audio books” and “audiobooks”). However, because of the duplicated spellings, this last bit is not as telling as the placeholder page in the Google Help Center. It could be that the genres are automatically generated, the blog speculates.

It wouldn’t be surprising for Google to move into audiobooks, though, an obvious complement to their current offerings, as well as into magazines, newspapers, catalogs, educational content, TV shows, and everything else that Apple is doing now within its iTunes universe. If anything, the rebranding effort with the Android Market (as much as we may hate it), seems to speak to a desire for it to be seen as a more robust, richer offering than “just” an app store.

To that end, Google even registered several domains that suggest its ambitions. These unused domains include googleplaymagazines.com, googleplaynewspapers.com, googleplaynewsstand.com, googleplaytv.com, and many other variations on those themes.

Google is also developing a consumer-facing experience for organizing purchased e-books at the home of its former online ebookstore, an Amazon-like shopping portal found at books.google.com/books. To be clear, that’s a separate storefront from its books search engine books.google.com (which also now points to Google Play). The stalled effort at creating a home for users’ purchased ebooks now has a second chance, complete with a library of books on Google Play, including a few pre-loaded classics like Great Expectations and Pride and Prejudice. Audiobooks would fit in well here, if Google moved in that direction.

Also of note, there are magazines available in this ebooks portal too, but not in the Google Play store. It’s clearly only a matter of time before the two sites (Play and Books) are even further merged making those magazines easy to find and purchase using the revamped Android Market…err…Google Play service. After all, if you have ‘em, promote ‘em.

Not surprisingly, there’s a placeholder help page for that, too, dubbed “magazines and journals.” Newspapers and TV placeholder help pages don’t yet exist, however.

Moolah Media Announces Mobile Display Network To Take On “Blind” Competitors

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 07:53 AM PST

moolah media

Moolah Media may be focused on performance-based mobile ads, but it isn’t ignoring the display advertising side of things — today it’s announcing a display network of its own.

CEO Shawn Scheuer says a display network has always been on the company’s road map. By opening up more inventory, this is another way to serve Moolah’s existing advertisers. Before this, he says the company wasn’t able to meet the existing demand.

Moolah has said it’s bringing in advertisers whose needs aren’t being addressed by most other mobile networks. Instead of paying publishers by the impression or click, Moolah charges based on the metrics that matter to direct-response marketers, such as form submissions and phone calls.

In January, the company said it helped 50 advertisers launch their first mobile campaign. Scheuer’s hope is that these advertisers will now skip the big ad networks entirely and come directly to Moolah with their display needs.

For its display network, Moolah is making a big deal about its transparency. The company says its real-time bidding platform allows advertisers to specify which sites its ads can and can’t be shown on. There are “some small networks” that provide similar transparency, Scheuer says, but they’re focused on brand advertisers.

“CPC networks like AdMob, JumpTap, InMobi, etc., are completely blind and do not reveal where ads are shown,” he says.

Hearst Hits 100k Cosmo App Subscribers En Route To 1 Million Paying Digital Readers

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 07:32 AM PST

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Another milestone for old-school print magazines moving into a digital future: Cosmopolitan says that it now has 100,000 people paying to read the digital edition of its monthly fashion/beauty/lifestyle magazine. That puts publisher, Hearst, one step closer to a target set by president David Carey last November to rack up one million paying subscribers across all of its non-print editions this year.

The 100,000 readers, Hearst says, come from its presence on a number of newsstands, including Apple, Zinio, Barnes & Noble and Amazon Kindle, where prices go from $1.99 for a one-month subscription to $19.99 for a full year of the magazine.

It’s not clear which of these newsstands is selling the most at the moment (we’ve asked). Zinio was the first of these launched by Hearst back in 2005, but the boom in digital reading, and specifically paying for the privilege, has really only taken off in the last couple of years with the rise of e-reading devices and tablets like the iPad and Kindle, and so these may be the storefronts doing the most business for Hearst at the moment.

Hearst says that now it has 500,000 paying readers across the whole of its digital magazine footprint. That means the publisher has added 100,000 subscribers since the end of November. That footprint also includes titles like Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Harper's Bazaar and O.

It looks like Cosmo — being the first to get the 100,000-subscriber-announcement treatment — may be the biggest of these at the moment. But they are all growing at a clip right now, it seems: back in November 2011, Carey noted that the subscriber base was growing at a rate of 10-15 percent per month.

But while Hearst’s big magazine brands may be carrying the day right now, the publisher is also banking on readers for digital-only spinoffs — products that in the heyday of printed magazines may have been physical editions in their own right, but today are made or broken by the amount of capital investment they would require to get off the ground. These “brand extensions” have included CFG: Cosmo for Guys on the iPad, but also one-off apps that riff on themes from the main magazine, such as Cosmopolitan’s Sex Position of the Day; more apparently are to come.

All this on top of the digital audience that Cosmo is attracting to its free online properties: Cosmopolitan.com, for example, currently has 7 million unique visitors per month, Hearst says.

GroupMe, Gilt Groupe, Jon Bon Jovi Launch SummerQAmp To Create More Quality Assurance Jobs

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 07:30 AM PST

Unemployment continues to be an issue here in the States, but the tech industry could prove a very valuable resource when it comes to building out the American work force. That said, I sat down with GroupMe co-founder Steve Martocci recently and he just may have a plan to help solve the problem.

In conjunction with former White House CTO Aneesh Chopra, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and Gilt Groupe's VP of Quality Engineering Kevin Haggard, GroupMe and Steve Martocci will participate in a new initiative aimed at training young people in the ways of Quality Assurance tech positions. Jibe, OnSwipe and Newton are all participating, as well. The program was developed as a commitment to the White House’s Summer Jobs + initiative, which calls businesses to work with the government to offer a path toward employment for low-income youth.

The program will focus specifically on Quality Assurance jobs, which Martocci sees as a platform to go on and do even more creative things in the tech space. The goal is to provide at the very least 1,000 QA internships this coming summer.

But you can’t expect kids to just jump up and be ready for a tech job, especially when education for it is lacking. Luckily, SummerQAmp is partnering with the CK-12 Foundation to launch an online educational platform later this year, where young people can learn more about what QA is really about and help in the development of mobile apps. Of course, the site will also function as an internship listings page.

The Apple Store, She Is Down

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 07:12 AM PST

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Just as surely as the swallows winging their way back to Capistrano or my mouth herpes flaring up again, as expected, the Apple Store is down.

Remember that we will have a full liveblog plus a full, live video commentary running during the event at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific. There is no live streaming of the event anywhere, so watch this space for what Apple has on offer.

Oh, and if you have something to say or feel like chatting anything out with us, use the hashtag #iPadCrunch on Twitter and we’ll be sure to get back to you.



A Very Special Episode: TV Takes On Patent Trolls

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 06:48 AM PST

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While I find most reality TV abhorrent, last week’s Shark Tank brought a very interesting concept to the usual babble that is the modern “boss” show. In this episode, Scott Jordan, creator of ScottEVest, appeared in front of a motley crew of entrepreneurs including Mark Cuban and Kevin O’Leary to pitch his patent licensing business, Technology Enabled Clothing or TEC. You can watch the episode here if you’re a masochist.

I’m not about to defend any of the people on here except to say that they are successful in their own right and most of them are blowhards. Blowhards can and are often successful and interesting, but often not on their own terms (see also) and often to the detriment of their souls. But darned if they don’t make for some good TV.

The premise of the show is fairly simple. Entrepreneurs, usually some guys who have a widget to sell, come on the show to request a few hundred thou from these investors. Most important, Mark Burnett Productions, takes a percentage of each company, whether it receives funding or not, so it’s sort of a nice investment engine for ABC. The entrepreneurs get fifteen minutes in the spotlight, offering pitches that are one step up from a first-year MBA presentation, then the sharks get to tear into them. In the end, nobody goes home happy except maybe Mark Burnett.

So Scott comes on and wants to pitch TEC. TEC, for lack of a better term, is a licensing company, and for lack of a better epithet, it’s a patent troll. Rather than make anything, the company licenses the technology that is in ScottEVest clothing, ensuring the circle of litigation continues. Mark Cuban, in a bout of reasonableness, points out that this sort of company is what is wrong with the technology industry while Scott sticks to his guns saying that this is why the founding fathers built a patent system in the first place.

You’ll notice a few key phrases in that last paragraph: “reasonable,” “patent system,” “litigation.” Clearly this isn’t your Snooki’s reality TV.

The two got into it on Twitter with Cuban supporting a competing brand that, in a sense, infringes on Scott’s patent and Scott releasing wild-eyed videos and letters. In the end it degenerated into an exercise in self-promotion with Cuban coming out on top because he stopped caring after the show wrapped.

You get the idea.

If you’re still with me, there are two important lessons to take away from this. First is that entrepreneurship has now become popular entertainment. A decade ago, if you had an idea you had two options: you could try to sell it to a big company or you could hook up with one of those shady “invention” outfits who would try to license your patent, a la Intellectual Ventures. There really was no third way because there was no way to distribute your invention aside from putting a bunch of junk in your trunk and driving around the midwest like the dad in Gremlins.

All that has changed. Now there are pitch contests, Disrupts, hack-a-thons, FooBarCamps, Amsterdamstartup events, and trade shows galore. There are Kickstarters and Arduino boards and Chinese manufacturers lining up to build any piece of junk you can CAD. There are desktop, tabletop, and basement 3D printers and anyone with a mouse and a dream can code the next Path. It’s gotten so easy for people to build something that the competition to be good has been replaced with the competition to be first. And that race makes for good TV. No one wants to see some sad sack drive through Idaho trying to sell a smokeless ashtray but they love seeing two dudes get up trying to sell a pair of lip balms that mix to create different flavors because these guys have seen so many entrepreneurs do their little dance on stage that they think they have a chance.

The second lesson is that this show actually posited some very good points on patent law and the creative enterprise. Scott didn’t want to sell any part of his vest company because he knew it was a solid business. As odious as he seems on the show, he’s a smart guy and he knows he’s got a goose that lays hoodies. What he packaged for them, then, was a derivative. They were investing in future gains on lawsuits generated by his patents. If that isn’t the wildest television I’ve seen since Sammy Davis Jr. kissed Archie Bunker, I don’t know what is.

And Scott has no reason to be ashamed. Patent law works just as he described it. It protects him from copycats and clones for a certain period (and there are clones out there already, so it doesn’t work very well) and all of his posturing is business as usual in business. While Cuban is trying to be noble, Jordan is trying to be realistic.

So we get to the two most pernicious aspects of start-up life: the flip assumption that anyone can be a billionaire and the mercenary assumption that you should litigate any and all comers. Building a business is hard work. I’ve seen it done countless times and in the course of moving through TechCrunch I’ve done (some) of it. It’s not all elevator pitches and networking and seed money. It’s building a project in your spare time and then building another one and then building another one until you’re ready to ship. It’s building something on top of the real moneymaker in your organization – Instagram, for example, was a side project that became the main project – and then was spun off. It requires effort and intelligence, not jeans, a funny t-shirt, and a blazer.

Second, we have to agree with Cuban that patent law is broken and we have to agree with Jordan that his products must be protected. Patents are a slippery subject and too often they’re used as cudgels rather than sniper rifles. The more time spent putzing around with who infringed on who, the less time entrepreneurs have to make the next big thing. It’s a shame and it should change.

So there you have it: we learned something from reality TV. A real first. Hopefully Cam and Mitchell don’t decide to clone themselves, thereby raising a national debate on the legality of human chimaeras. I don’t think the public dialogue could handle it.

Telefonica Opens Wayra Incubator In London, Plans More In Europe

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 06:28 AM PST

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Telecoms giant Telefonica has unveiled the latest addition to a network of nine startup incubators it’s been busily building in Latin America and Spain. The latest “Wayra Academy” was announced today in London but won’t be opening its doors until May. Here’s how it’s set up: Telefonica takes around a 10% stake in a startup for up to €50,000 in funding, pocket change to a company like Telefonica. Wayra will put about 20 startups into its shiny new London building for six months, after which it will help them pitch for follow-on funding from other sources of venture capital. No VC partners have been announced yet as “the speed of action is crucial and we wanted to open all Wayra Avademies this year,” said José María Álvarez-Pallete, Chairman and CEO, Telefónica Europe at the launch.

If a startup doesn’t find other sources of funding in 6 months, Telefonica says they can stay another six months, though presumably they’d have to start paying rent, or perhaps make way for a bunch of new entrants.

In exchange for the initial funding Telefonica gets the right of first refusal on the companies. Clearly that provides some potential security in that you’ve basically got a potential buyer before you even start, but it’s not going to be very competitive if your startup gets a better offer from some other suitor. Telefonica says it doesn’t require the startup to give it exclusivity.

However the big draw of course is that if you’re a startup that needs to have a telecom partner at the off, this is a dream come true. The ideal scenario is that Wayra startups will get PR-d amongst Telefonica companies and internally.

Applying startups will get filtered down to 30-40 and will then have to pitch during a Wayra Week in late May.

It also plans to open other Wayra’s in Berlin, Dublin and Prague. Ultimately it plans to fund around 350 startups.

At least Wayra London’s location won’t be hobbled by not being in London’s Eastern cluster of startups. Its Tottenham Court Road location means it’s about 2 minutes walk away from the 22,000 students at nearby at University College London.

Simon Devonshire will head up the London Wayra.

London is now getting seriously up to speed with coworking places and incubators. Just don’t call it a bubble…

The Kinect-A-Sketch: A Homebrew Robotic Sketcher

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:34 AM PST

This video from Waterloo Labs shows a bunch of young, excited interns building what amounts to a computer-controlled Etch-A-Sketch. The project uses an Xbox Kinect sensor to find the nearest point in space and then transmits that motion to an Arduino board which in turn controls stepper motors to turn the Etch-A-Sketch knobs. Sure you could just turn the knobs yourself, but where would the fun be in that?

You can pick up an Arduino board and software for about $50 these days so these sorts of wacky homebrew projects are closer to everyday reality than you’d think. Considering the highest tech I ever got in school was building a balloon powered car, to have these resources at hand would be boon to science teachers everywhere.

While you won’t be drawing the Mona Lisa with this thing, it’s a fun experiment and the video – after the gratuitous nerd intro – is pretty funny.



Nuance Buys Transcription And Speech Editing Company Transcend For $300M In Cash

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:12 AM PST

transcend-services

Nuance has just announced that it is acquiring Transcend, a company that provides medical transcription and speech editing services, for approximately $300 million in cash, or $29.50 per Transcend share.

Nuance, which develops imaging and voice recognition technologies, says that Transcend will help expand its customer base to the healthcare and hospital market. For background, Transcend Services provides medical transcription services to the healthcare industry in the United States. The company’s technology converts physicians' voice recordings into electronic medical record documents.

Transcend utilizes a combination of its proprietary Internet-based voice and data distribution technology, customer based technology, and home-based medical language specialists to convert physicians' voice recordings into electronic documents. It also provides outsourcing transcription and editing services on the customer's platform.

Nuance says the acquisition will add between $140 million and $150 million in revenue in the fiscal year 2013. Nuance also just bought Swype for $100 million last Fall, and acquired Vlingo in December. And the company recently partnered with Intel to add voice recognition to the chip giant’s products.

Social Enterprise Company Jive Debuts New Customer Service Software

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:00 AM PST

jive

Enterprise software company Jive is launching a Social Customer Service software, which aims to help enterprises manage all things customer service while also tapping into social channels like Facebook and Twitter.

As you may know, Jive is one of the giants on the social enterprise space. Modeled to offer Facebook-like features to enterprises, Jive's software combines computing with social collaboration to offer fully-featured social networks for businesses. Its suite of applications help businesses collaborate on a variety of tasks, including holding discussions, communication, sharing documents, blogging, running polls, social networking features and more.

Jive claims that their customer service platform is one of the more full-fledged, comprehensive applications on the market. Jive says that the software supports not only external customer communities but also internal team communities where customer service teams can share expertise and collaborate to resolve customer cases. The two communities are connected so that customer service teams can communicate easily with the customer community.

The application features integration with existing, CRM and case management systems; Facebook connectors that automatically pull customer questions on the company's fan page into the customer community and pushes answers back to the Facebook page, as well as social media monitoring and engagement so that agents can spot and respond to concerns on Twitter, Facebook and other channels.

Jive also connects with Outlook, and has added elements of game mechanics that encourage and reward active participation in customer service communities (powered by Bunchball. Additionally, customers and service agents can participate in their communities, post questions, access resources and participate in discussions direct from their mobile devices, including iOS and Android.

We’re told the application is currently in private beta and will be broadly available at the end of the first quarter.

It’s not surprising that Jive is making a big push into the help desk market, considering the explosion of the space. Customer service SaaS applications are proving to be a competitive (and potentially lucrative) market. Zendesk has seen pretty significant success with its offering, and Get Satisfaction is also a leader in powering customer service communities. And Salesforce recently debuted its full-fledged customer service software, Desk.com.

Ahead Of Today’s Apple News, Samsung Files Yet Another Suit In Korea Over iPad 2, iPhone 4S

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 03:17 AM PST

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Just hours before Apple is due to unveil what many think will be a new version of its best-selling iPad tablet, Samsung has tried to steal a little thunder by filing a lawsuit against the Cupertino company over patent violations in the newest models that Apple has on the market as of this morning, the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. The suit was filed in Samsung’s home market of Korea.

Given how these patent suits have come to represent almost as much in public mindshare as they have in terms of actual licensing deals (and, more loftily, questions of originality in device design), this could be seen as a well-timed and key move by Samsung. But it also appears to be a reversal of strategy…

On the one hand, Apple has been storming the smartphone market since re-energizing with its iPhone 4S launch last autumn, and we could well see a similar effect in tablets if it launches a new iPad today — as many believe it will. Putting in a lawsuit before the launch is one way of Samsung keeping up its challenge against that onslaught.

But on the other hand, lodging a suit in Korea seems to mark a change in strategy in terms of how Samsung has decided to approach these legal battles.

Korea is actually one of the few markets that has seen Samsung drop suits against Apple: in November 2011, Samsung dropped a separate patent suit over the iPhone 4S, and at the time it looked like one of the main reasons was because it actually looked more like negative rather than positive PR for Samsung’s spin doctors.

At the time, a senior Samsung official, quoted in the Chosunilbo daily, noted, “We concluded that we should engage in legal battles with Apple only in the global market, but not in order to gain more market share in Korea.”

Fast-forward to today, and it may well have been that PR just formed one part of the decision (and maybe even a small part), while Samsung worked out a better and more powerful suit against Apple. While the original suit only pertained to Apple’s iPhone 4S, this latest, according to an article in Reuters, covers the infringement of three patents in both the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2.

The three patents pertain to data display, user interface and short text messages. While the first two sound very general, the third is a bit more specific but it’s still not clear exactly what that last one means: possibly the abbreviations that Apple lets you program to expand into longer phrases?

On a wider level, Samsung and Apple are still actively going after each other in a number of other countries, including Australia, Germany, France, Italy and the U.S — 30 cases in all covering 10 countries, covering technical as well as design patents used in their respective ranges of mobile devices.

Those cases are not proving to be one-sided in their outcome although there have been some notable and possibly debilitating injunctions on Samsung tablets in the process, specifically in Germany and Australia. Apple is also involved in patent cases against other Android-based device makers, most notably HTC and Motorola Mobility.

To be sure, Samsung and Apple have been fairly liberal with the amount of suits they have going on against each other right now, but it’s probably also worth pointing out that Samsung also got a bit more active in its filings around the time of the iPhone 4S launch (particularly in Europe) so we may see more coming from the company in the days and weeks ahead.

We have reached out to both Apple and Samsung for comment and will update this story as we learn more.

Update: Samsung has provided TechCrunch with a statement on its position in the case in Korea. It says that the patents here are different from those in the case filed in April 2011, which pertained to telecoms standards (those that fall under so-called FRAND licensing):

“Samsung has today (March 6) filed a lawsuit against Apple in the Seoul Central District Court over its continued infringement of three utility patents in its iPhone 4S and iPad 2.
 
This lawsuit is separate from the proceedings filed against Apple in Seoul in April 2011 regarding infringement of telecommunications standards-related patents.
 
Samsung will continue to assert its intellectual property rights and defend its investment in innovation in order to ensure our continued growth in the mobile industry.”

Update 2: An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on this today.

PlayMob Raises Funding To Incentivise Social Games To Carry Charitable Virtual Goods

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 02:49 AM PST

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PlayMob, whose product GiverBoard lets charities fundraise via a clever in-game micro-payment mechanic, has secured £500,000 ($787,000) funding from NESTA and Midven alongside angel investors. The team will now expand from 8 to 13 and the product gets a decent shot in the arm.

Founded in 2007, Playmob’s GiverBoard lets charities fundraise by allowing players of social games to buy virtual items linked to a charity. The ideal scenario is that a tractor bought in FarmVille could be linked to a charity which plants crops in Zambia. In a test campaign, a Thanksgiving charity campaign in November 2011 where virtual food hats bought meals for homeless children and families in New York. So it clearly works. But it gets better.

There’s an incentive for game developers to use GiverBoard as well: it makes them look better in the eyes of the users (charity etc) but more significantly, as CEO and founder Jude Ower points out, players get the instant gratification of doing good while buying their virtual goods.

And as we pointed out last year the idea also entices users to get used to the idea of paying for virtual goods by donating to charity. Once they’ve done that they are more inclined to pay for normal goods, thus giving the game an uplift in revenues. When Zynga sold ‘Sweet seeds’ for the Haiti earthquake disaster 80 percent of givers were non-paying players. So GiverBoard educates players into playing more often and get them hooked. It’s a charity Trojan horse!

Furthermore, charities can reduce the costs of fundraising while increasing engagement by getting in front of mass audiences online, while getting a more sustainable ‘Little and often’ income stream rather than the unsustainable big campaign approach.

Developers can nominate a virtual good within their game they wish to donate a percentage (minimum 50 percent) to a charity and select which cause or specific charity they wish to promote. Developers give 50 percent of the revenue from the purchase of the virtual good to the associated charity. PlayMob charges a flat fee of 10 percent.

The Charity then selects which types of games and objects they wish to be matched with. Brands can also pick up a sponsor package to support a charity. PlayMob makes extra revenue from providing analytics on the effectiveness of the goods.

Essentially it’s a game layer on top of games to allow payment for everything. Smart, huh.

I’m Already Sick Of SXSW

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 12:39 AM PST

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We’re republishing this timeless classic, because it still stands pretty much as is exactly as is year later.

Believe it or not, I had this very same conversation about GroupMe versus Beluga as a preferred messaging app WITH THE SAME EXACT COLLEAGUE today, though yeah, in retrospect, the dude was right, Facebook did “do something” to them.

Also, I’m not hosting a “pussies in tech” panel with Sklar this year …

Instead, this. Come, if you actually have a badge.

****************************************************************************************************************

I had a conversation today with a colleague to discuss our SXSW Interactive strategy. My coworker figured, rightfully, that SXSW would be a shitshow and that maybe we should use one of the much talked about group texting apps to stay in touch. I only “use” one group texting app, one that I covered for TechCrunch, and thus suggested GroupMe. My colleague said that he liked Beluga better and that we should use Beluga. And then he hesitated, “Hmm … Well maybe we shouldn’t use Beluga because what if Facebook ‘does something to them’ ?…”

!!! This is the hyper-techy microcosm that we live in, where you’re scared to use a budding app to communicate with co-workers during a conference lest a company “do something” to it. And what? You end up looking uncool?

While there’s no way I’m going to ever be the ideal use case for Group Texting (… the new “Location Based”), because it necessitates having more than one friend, I can’t really see the big problem it solves. Or rather, I have no idea why there are tens of tens apps in in the space.

Also, I have no idea why a SXSW breakfast with Guy Kawasaki is presented as a prize, but the email promoting it has miraculously found its way to my inbox, along with a bunch of nonsense “VIP” events sponsored by non-tech companies and a ton of pitches from a bunch of startups that just confuse me by their reluctance to say what it is they actually do, lest someone out there clones their killer app before their plane hits Austin-Bergstrom.

A follow through on one of these pitches leads you down an inbox rabbit hole where seven emails later you figure out it’s a Group Texting app but the founders don’t want to reveal that just yet because they don’t want anyone to copy them.

“Then why pitch to the press so early?” “To build “buzz” before SXSW.” Geez. Geez.

While I wouldn’t miss it for the world (Rachel Sklar and I are moderating an incredibly worthy and industry relevant core conversation here), SXSW creeps me out, if simply because it makes otherwise sane people act so silly.

But this SXSW Influencers Guide, a mashup of Plancast and some shady thing called Socmetrics, is the epitome of why I’m already sick of SXSW four days before it’s even started. Mainly because it reminds me that we’re now viewing each other as “influencers” and have somehow stopped looking at each other as “people” — I didn’t study so hard to get out of high school just to be faced with a whole ‘nother high school as an adult.

And I just RSVP’d in a panic to some super-duper VIP thing while writing this, so trust me, I understand the allure of hobnobbing with the tech snobs and am not immune. But at the drunken end of the SXSW day proceed with caution: You almost never want to be a part of the cool kids, because they’re not the ones actually getting anything done. I promise.

Image: ninebullets

Social Marketing Startup BlogFrog Raises $3.2M

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:00 PM PST

blogfrog logo

BlogFrog, a self-described “social activation platform,” has raised $3.2 million in a Series A round of funding.

The company was first known as a community for “mommy bloggers”, allowing them to add social features to their sites. In the last year or so, however, BlogFrog has shifted direction, using its technology and audience for a new end — helping marketers reach an influential audience.

That doesn’t mean it’s another ad network, says co-founder and CEO Rustin Banks: “We’re basically anti-banner ads.” Instead, it currently offers two products. One creates online communities where fans of a given brand, like this site for KOA campgrounds. The other recruits influential bloggers (Banks says BlogFrog has a database of 65,000) to post on topics related to a campaign, and then include an ad unit at the end with a call to join the conversation. See, for example, this post on the Buried With Children blog for a LEGO campaign.

The round was led by Grotech Ventures, with participation from existing investors, including TechStars founder David Cohen. Banks says the big plan for the money is to “get the word out” — he estimates that the company is only selling 5 percent of the campaigns that it could with the bloggers in its database. Among other things, that means doubling the head count this year and opening an office in New York City.

The iPad HD Sucks*

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 08:50 PM PST

Screen Shot 2012-03-06 at 8.44.28 PM

*I haven’t actually seen it yet. I’m not actually sure what features it will have. I’m quite sure I’m a jackass for saying so right now. But hey — FIRST!!!!

There was a time not too long ago when the day before an Apple event was the time for everyone to get their last-minute predictions in. For the most part, it was a moment of pure wonder. These days, it seems it’s the time to pre-reflect on what Apple “will” announce. The shark has been jumped. The snake eats its own tail.

The problem — if you want to call it that — of course, stems from the fact that the tech sites with the best sources have gotten very good at nailing many of the key surprises which Apple ends up unveiling. (That’s why OS X Mountain Lion was so surprising — it was an actual surprise!) Most of them don’t get everything right. And they’re quite often wrong in many ways too. But there are so many people sniffing around now that eventually by way of process journalism, a consensus is reached and most of the good stuff is unearthed.

For tomorrow’s event, it sure seems like all of the following will be true: there will be a new iPad unveiled. It will be called the “iPad HD” and not the “iPad 3″. It will feature a “Retina” display that is twice the resolution of the previous iPad display. It will feature 4G LTE technology on some models. It will have more RAM than the previous versions. It will be slightly thicker. It will have a better camera. It will launch March 16. The prices will be the same. It will have a button.

Hell, we even seem to know that a new Apple TV is coming as well.

All of this knowledge leads to something inevitable: an initial letdown amongst some. This now seems to be a regular occurrence at Apple events. Again, people have gotten better at guessing what’s coming, but they want to be surprised. And yet, despite these “letdowns”, Apple is doing better than ever. The iPhone 4S was a “disappointment” and it’s Apple’s best-selling device. Last year’s iPad was also a “disappointment“. Again, massive success. Apple made $46 BILLION DOLLARS last quarter. Maybe they were shorting their ability to surprise and massively buying up shares of disappointment. But I don’t think so.

There’s a very real disconnect between some of those in the tech press and actual human beings, it seems.

It’s not just about advanced knowledge, of course. Some people probably have posts prepped and ready to go right now pointing out what a “disappointment” tomorrow’s announcement will be. The contrarians. It’s no secret that on days with huge news that everyone is writing about, this is the easiest way to drum up more pageviews.

And now there’s something else that feeds this beast. Because Apple continues their insane ascent to the top of the mountain, everyone wants to be the first to call “top!” and successfully predict the downfall of the company. You only build up companies to knock them down, after all. The past several years have left these people looking like total assclowns. But it doesn’t matter. Everyone forgets who said what two years ago. Or six months ago. Or a week ago. All that matters is if you were right this time.

And all that is fine if only because we’re used to it. What’s getting really ridiculous this year is pre-calling the “disappointment” for an event that hasn’t yet happened for a product that hasn’t yet been revealed. It’s almost like these are the pre-prepped contrarian posts that people are now just deciding to post before the event just for the hell of it. Why wait, right?

The Mercury News Service: “iPad 3 may disappoint”

CNET: “Apple should be blowing us away with the iPad 3, but it probably won’t.

The AP: “New iPad expected to have modest upgrades”

Etc, Etc, Etc. Being pre-disappointed is the new disappointed.

Again, we think we know everything — but what if we don’t? Or even if we do, is tomorrow really going to be disappointing? Apple is upgrading a dominant product in the market in a way that is likely to make it even more dominant. If the rumors are true, they’re giving us pretty much everything we can ask for. Seriously, what else do we want? “A fusion energy source? Teleportation? A camera that sees into the future?,” asks John Gruber.

All of this leads to posts where some of us call-out people who are likely to look like absolute morons six months from now when they declare tomorrow a disappointment. And posts that call-out people who are pre-declaring tomorrow to be a disappointment. And now there are even posts that pre-predict posts like this one. My head hurts.

Tomorrow is going to be amazing, and no one will be happy. Except, of course, the consumers who end up buying the product that absolutely sucks*.

[image: flickr/wangsy]

Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors To Sponsor Hackathon In Downtown Palo Alto

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 07:10 PM PST

Super Happy Block Party

In an effort to help support startups and technology house in Palo Alto, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s venture fund Innovation Endeavors is sponsoring its first hackathon in the city on March 31. The event, called the Super Happy Block Party Hackathon, will take place on March 31, from 1 pm to 1 am in downtown Palo Alto.

We’re told the City of Palo Alto will block off High Street between University and Hamilton. In addition, the day-long event will feature food trucks, parking spaces dedicated to local startups, and a Hack the Future tent to teach kids to code. The venture fund is also partnering with Talenthouse, and Institute for the Future.

The Super Happy Block Party Hackathon is designed a creative playing field for artists as well as hackers. There will be standing-height canvasses for artists to paint; pixelated tweeted murals and a mural of canvasses along the exterior of Talenthouse.

Facebook Already Made Friend Finder Changes Demanded By German Court

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 06:39 PM PST

Facebook Germany

A German court ruling against Facebook this morning is likely moot because the social network had already made changes to address the court’s mandates.

See, back in 2010 a German consumer organization complained Facebook’s Friend Finder inviter feature didn’t adequately inform users their imported contacts would be used to send invites, according to Friending Facebook Blog. But Facebook has since made numerous changes to Friend Finder, including adding a disclaimer, providing an improved contacts manager, and adding unsubscribe options to email invites. It probably won’t have to make any significant changes in response to this ruling.

According to the complaining Verbraucherzentrale Bundesver consumer group (translated):

“The court ruled that the user would have to be clearly informed that their entire address book is imported by Facebook’s Friend Finder and is used to send invitations to friends. While the Facebook application has been modified slightly, in the opinion of the vzbv not be sufficient. ‘The fact that Facebook imports the entire address book is still not readily apparent,” writes vzbv Board Gerd Billen.’”

Facebook won’t receive the actual court papers including the rationale for the ruling until a few days from now. At that point it will learn if the ruling was based entirely on the 2010 version of Friend Finder, or if new versions were considered. A spokesman tells me, though,

“We will take a close look into the details of today’s court decision as soon as they are available and then decide on the next steps. Facebook Ireland Ltd, which provides our service to people in Germany, is committed to adhering to European data protection principles as demonstrated by the recent report of the Office of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.”

Facebook has informed me that contacts imported by Friend Finder have never been automatically invited to join the service, and that users have always had to actively click an “invite” button. However, if invitees didn’t respond, it would automatically send up to two reminders.

To make Friend Finder more privacy friendly since 2010, Facebook has added an unsubscribe button to its email invites and reminders. A contact manager lets users delete existing contacts or prevent reminders from being sent. Most importantly, Facebook now shows a “See How It Works” link in Friend Finder that reveals the following disclaimer that sounds pretty much exactly like what the German court is requesting that Facebook add:

“Facebook won’t share the email addresses you import with anyone, but we will store them on your behalf and may use them later to generate friend suggestions for you and others. Depending on your email provider, addresses from your contacts list and mail folders may be imported. You should only import contacts from accounts you’ve set up for personal use.”

Over the past six months, deep privacy audits by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner haven’t found problems with how the new version of Friend Finder informs users how contact are used. Facebook has agreed to seek safer alternatives to transmitting data over plain text, and tell to users that deactivating contact sync doesn’t remove previously synced data.

Neither of these commissions had complaints about how the core functionality of Friend Finder works or is explained, so the Germans would have to be feeling pretty feisty to conclude that more changes were necessary. At most, the words “entire address book” might need to be added to the current disclaimer or reminders might not be able to be sent in Germany. As the social network is still trying to sign up users in Germany where it has a lower than average penetration rate of roughly 27 percent, these changes could have negative impact on Facebook’s business if required, but it would be a small one.

Really today’s ruling shows the inability for the world’s courts to keep up with the pace of high tech and product innovation. Had the complaint been heard in 2010, it could have spurred Facebook to make changes sooner. Instead today’s hearing was likely a waste of German taxpayer’s money.

An Alliance With Cable Is Exactly What Netflix Needs To Survive

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 06:28 PM PST

netflix-adds-kinect-support

For television consumers, Netflix has long been looked upon as a potential savior from the bonds of cable TV. But now they seem to be joining the enemy. If a Reuters exclusive is believed, there have been high-level talks between Reed Hastings and cable executives to bring Netflix to cable. One day, perhaps within the year, it’s entirely possible that cable subscribers will have Netflix access from their cable box.

The Reuters report speculates that this partnership would elevate the tension between Netflix and HBO. But this move, if it’s true, is much bigger than a fist fight between the two companies. It’s about the future of Netflix.

Once upon a time, Netflix was going to ride into town and free consumers from high cable bills. It was going to provide a nearly a la carte content option, something that cable providers cannot do. In lieu of live content, consumers could choose from a large, but still limited, media library for a relatively bargain price. But then big media got wind and slowed Netflix’s roll by demanding high licensing fees and short-term contracts.

Netflix is effectively at a stalemate right now.

Over the last few years Netflix’s growth was fueled by an explosion of new hardware. The company early on embraced a lot of hardware platforms and made their app a staple on every device. But now, in 2012, Netflix’s untapped market is likely depleted. Netflix needs cable nearly as much as cable needs Netflix.

Cable providers are often looked upon as massive anti-consumer machines. Comcast and others pioneered on-demand streaming in the living room but Netflix often gets the credit. By bringing Netflix into the fold, cable providers can save face and look pro-consumer for a change. Offering Netflix through their cable boxes is akin to buying innovation.

As Reuters states, the service would likely be offered for a monthly fee but a massive deal could likely be struck that would be beneficial to both companies while offering Netflix at its standard $7.99 monthly price. Netflix would also likely have to rework several of its contract deals to stream via a cable provider’s set-top box as well. These negations might delay, or even kill, the whole deal.

Unconventional cloud-based services like Netflix, Rdio, and even Steam show consumers are willing to pay a modest price for convenience. Cable is not convenient nor is it priced well. Cutting the cord is a popular anti-establishment movement. But Netflix is also in a tough spot as growth is slowing and content deals are becoming harder to sign. Netflix has a tough road ahead, though. The company is essentially dancing with several devils. They need to sign deals that are not only financially beneficial but also maintains the core values consumers have come to love and expect.
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