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Dave Weinberg posted a message on Twitter
May 12, 2010 7:23 AM - Sign in to comment - Link

Jason Calacanis To Speak At TechCrunch Disrupt, And He Wants To Buy You A Ticket

- Dave Weinberg

RT @TechCrunch Jason Calacanis To Speak At Tech #Crunch Disrupt, And He Wants To Buy You A Ticket http://tcrn.ch/cGvsqA

- Dave Weinberg
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Alan Simpson posted a message
May 11, 2010 9:46 AM - Sign in to comment - Link

ouch! OTOH, the NBA Players Association, in a financial counseling workshop, allegedly told its own players that 60% of players go bankrupt within 5 years of retirement, at which point, their monthly debt will equal your annual salary. http://www.briancuban.com/why-athletes-go-broke/

- .LAG liked that
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tommy payne posted a message on Twitter
April 28, 2010 1:30 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Richard posted a message on Twitter
April 3, 2010 10:27 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
Blogging the Liveblogging of the iPad Launch

crowd-1.jpgDiscontented with the notion of merely reading about the iPad launch and perusing reviews thereof? Time to stop worrying and learn to love the liveblog. Marvel at our semi-comprehensive list of people in line bruising their thumbs in the service of moment-by-moment documentation of line speeds.

Sponsor

  • New York Times Bits blog: a plethora of Times functionaries have spread out across the nation
  • CNET: covering San Francisco, Palo Alto and NYC
  • Gizmodo: the kids at Gizmodo are doing a marathon live-app review
  • Intomobile: at the Palo Alto store
  • PaidContent: at the Best Buy in Manhattan
  • Reuters: even Reuters is getting in on the action!
  • Tech Crunch: in service of our evil twin, Jason Kincaid in San Fransisco
  • TUAW: representing the Mountain States
  • rubegoldberg

If you know of any other liveblogging of the iPad launch taking place around the globe, please drop a link in the comments, why don't you?

Top photo by Jon Marshall
Bottom photo via Alan Light

Discuss


Blogging the Liveblogging of the iPad Launch

- LouCypher
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Rob Diana shared an item on Google Reader
March 29, 2010 4:11 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
While there are many people still using Google Buzz, an article on Tech Crunch shows that the millions of users on Gmail simply have not caught on. Of course, we cannot blame the users' for this. Who needs yet another distraction when you have Facebook, Twitter, and FourSquare all doing pretty much the same thing. Even Google Reader has shown to be more useful for some people than Buzz. Now you might say: well, Buzz and Reader are meant for two completely different things, why compare them? The answer to that is simple: the reason Buzz is doing so badly is because you can compare them. And, quite frankly, Google better shape up its social networking services or they will have no chance at taking on Facebook.


The first mistake Google made with Buzz is actually one of their most well-known features: Gmail integration. While I applaud the fact that Gmail users can now use another one of Google's services with just one click, and while I definitely appreciate the integration, a social networking service does not go over well unless it has its own portal. Integration is good, and helpful, but not without a separate landing page. Because users are not going to go through the trouble of signing up for a Google account just so they can access something similar to FriendFeed, but worse. Buzz should have its own page, end of story.

The next problem Google made with Buzz is not getting rid of the noise. This is a problem everybody has seemed to have been dealing with lately, on all platforms. Steve Hodson had an OMG moment when Louis Gray realized his blog posts being in twelve places at once can get annoying for users.  As I said in the first paragraph, the primary reason Buzz is failing is that it can be compared with Google Reader. People route their Google Reader shared items directly to Buzz, at which point the entire post shows up in my feed. After that, a hundred people comment on it, and then the comments are practically larger than the post itself! Google does, in fact, hide comments when it gets too large, but that's only if you have marked the comments as read. Enter the Buzz stream for the first time in a few hours, and every single comment will be iterated over your screen.

The final mistake Google made with Buzz was not making anything worthwhile. What I mean by this is that all Buzz is right now is a copy of FriendFeed (did I say that already?). People have been blogging with claims that Buzz is Google's competition against Facebook and Twitter. Not a chance. Primarily because Facebook and Twitter have something Buzz does not: features. Facebook is an entire social networking platform, with walls (not the walled garden kind of walls, but actual profile walls), groups, fan pages, games, and more. Twitter catches users with its mobile capabilities; you do not need to be tied to a computer to use Twitter. Buzz has neither of these: it cannot be used anywhere other than in Gmail, and the only thing you can do is comment on other people's activity. In fact, the reason there is noise on Buzz in the first place is because all it is useful for is to act as a conversation board for shared items in somebody's Google Reader feed.

Just to sum up everything up here: there are few things Google needs to do fast if they want to rescue Buzz from ultimate failure. Give Buzz its own page, but keep the Gmail integration as well. Give more features to Buzz, and make it more like Orkut, without copying. Do not allow people to stream their Google Reader shared items into the service. And finally, make it easier for people to opt-in, because having Gmail as your only Buzz interface will not get you any new users.


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Jeremy dugg a story on Digg
March 27, 2010 8:29 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
Bang Up Your Lexus, Goof Off With a Samurai Sword [Hoon Of The Day] A very expensive crunch emanating from the front of your Lexus can only mean one thing: it’s time to bring out the duct tape, the spray paint, and a katana blade. More »
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LouCypher shared an item on Google Reader
March 23, 2010 7:22 AM - Sign in to comment - Link

NileGuide, one-stop travel planning site, has launched an new iPhone app, called What’s Next for geared towards travel recommendations. The startup, which lets you create customized trip itineraries is integrating location-based technology with What’s Next to offer personalized, and interactive content and recommendations in the app, which costs $2.99 on the App Store.

What’s Next aggregates content from over 30 different sources, including Citysearch and the NileGuide website, for 200 destinations. The app is designed for travel spontaneity. Travelers can arrive at a destination, turn on their device, touch the “Near Me” button, and find recommendations for nearby activities, restaurants, nightlife, hotels and more.

Users can refine these recommendations by filtering with preferences such as “romantic,” “business” or “off the beaten path,” or by searching based on activity type such as museums, spas or golf courses. There is also a filter for hotels and restaurants for “good for business travelers”. Users can also plan trips in advance by touching “Where To” button from the Home screen, choose any destination, and start building an itinerary before they arrive. And the app features much of the guidebook-like content that NileGuide includes on its web site.

NileGuide also has a free iPhone app that integrates more of the travel itinerary-creation functionality that is included on the startup’s website. While the travel app industry is a competitive space, this new app from NileGuide could be an incredibly useful tool for on-the-go recommendations with a location-based twists. And its reasonably priced given the vast amount of information included in the app. Founded in 2006 and based in San Francisco, NileGuide has received $9.5 million in funding from investors including Draper Richards, KPG Ventures, Austin Ventures, and Tenaya Capital.


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Louis Gray shared an item on Google Reader
March 13, 2010 7:43 AM - Sign in to comment - Link

In the video above, Doug Cutting, the creator of the Apache Hadoop project, discusses how the technology was first developed for large web companies (like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, which all use the open-source technology). Essentially, Cutting says Hadoop was born out of need: the data landscape was changing, and fast. Data volumes, especially complex data (video logs, visuals, etc.), were growing everywhere and there was a need for a cost-effective place to collect this data and mine it.

Cutting now works at Cloudera, the startup that commercially distributes and services Hadoop. Hadoop is a Java software framework born out of an open-source implementation of Google’s published computing infrastructure which is fostered within the Apache Software Foundation. Hadoop supports distributed applications running on large clusters of commodity computers processing enormous amounts of data.

Via Cloudera, Hadoop is currently used by most of the giants in the space including Google, Yahoo, Facebook (we wrote about Facebook’s use of Cloudera here), Amazon, AOL, Baidu and more. To date, Cloudera has raised $11 million in funding from Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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Ryan Singer posted a message on Twitter
March 12, 2010 10:51 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Rahsheen is aWeSoMe ™ posted a message on Twitter
March 12, 2010 10:31 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
TechCrunch Friday GiveAway: An Apple iPad #CRUNCH

It’s Apple iPad day, and every early adopter worth their salt is pre-ordering one of the soon to be ubiquitous little devices and counting the days until they get their hands on it on April 3. You’ve been waiting on this thing since December 2008, after all.

We know you’ve already bought two for yourselves, the limit, because that’s how TechCrunch readers roll. We know this because we’ve told our advertisers that every single one of our 9.2 million monthly readers is a high disposable income influencer in technology and media that just loves to try out new things that they see advertised on TechCrunch. And since those advertisers believe us, we have the means to buy an extra iPad and give it to you. Even though you’ll then have three of them. Because you, dear reader, are a high disposable income influencer.

Anyhow back to the iPad. This isn’ the 3G version, which comes later in April. This is the 16GB Wifi iPad, a $499 retail device, that we’ll give away to one lucky reader chosen at random who comments below or retweets this post. Just do one of two things: either retweet this post, and make sure to include the #crunch hashtag, or leave a comment below telling us why this device must be yours. The contest ends at noon California time on Saturday. Please only tweet the message once, anyone tweeting repeatedly will be disqualified. We’ll pick a winner tomorrow afternoon and contact you for more details. Anyone in the world is eligible, as long as you can receive delivered packages (our Nexus One winner lives in Romania). And we’ll throw in a TechCrunch tshirt.

Information provided by CrunchBase

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Ryan Singer posted a message on Twitter
March 12, 2010 10:18 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Ryan Singer posted a message on Twitter
March 12, 2010 10:18 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
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MG Siegler posted a message on Twitter
March 12, 2010 10:01 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
TechCrunch Friday GiveAway: An Apple iPad #CRUNCHIt's Apple iPad day, and every early adopter worth their salt is pre-ordering one of the soon to be ubiquitous little devices and counting the days until they get their hands on it on April 3. You've been waiting on this thing since December 2008, after all. We know you've already bought two for yourselves, the limit, because that's how TechCrunch readers roll. We know this because we've told our advertisers that every single one of our 9.2 million monthly readers is a high disposable income influencer in technology and media that just loves to try out new things that they see advertised on TechCrunch. And since those advertisers believe us, we have the means to buy an extra iPad and give it to you. Even though you'll then have three of them. Because you, dear reader, are a high disposable income influencer. Read on for details...

RT @TechCrunch: TechCrunch Friday GiveAway: An Apple iPad #CRUNCH - http://tcrn.ch/agpcp0 by @arrington

- Ryan Singer

RT @TechCrunch TechCrunch Friday GiveAway: An Apple iPad #CRUNCH http://ow.ly/1qfyOl

- S. Charles Balazs

RT @TechCrunch: TechCrunch Friday GiveAway: An Apple iPad #CRUNCH - http://tcrn.ch/agpcp0 by @arrington

- Pat Hawks

RT @techcrunch TechCrunch Friday GiveAway: An Apple iPad #CRUNCH http://ow.ly/1qfyOl

- Kyle

RT @techcrunch TechCrunch Friday GiveAway: An Apple iPad #CRUNCH http://tcrn.ch/dva2yw

- Snay Trivedi
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Dave Winer posted a message on Twitter
March 3, 2010 7:29 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Victor Ganata shared an item on Google Reader
March 1, 2010 5:07 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
Apple Rejects App For Containing "Minimal User Functionality" [Apple]

A million fart app developers must've just started sobbing in hysterical fear as Apple decided to reject an app because it "contains minimal user functionality and will not be appropriate for the App Store."

The app in question, DuckPhone, was developed by Nick Bonatsakis of Atlantia Software and had one simple purpose: To make your phone quack like a duck. For whatever reason, Apple didn't think that was useful enough to an average user and wrote Nick this love letter:

"Dear Atlantia Software LLC,

We've reviewed your application DuckPhone and we have determined that this application contains minimal user functionality and will not be appropriate for the App Store.

If you would like to share it with friends and family, we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing or if you believe that you can add additional user functionality to DuckPhone we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.

Sincerely,

iPhone App Review Team"

My guess is that whoever was stuck reviewing DuckPhone really hates Jersey Shore, but the bigger issue remains: Apple's now got yet another completely arbitrary reason to reject an app. [Crunch Gear]



I will reject the "Apple App Store needs to be completely open" idea until people start arguing that developers should be able to make any sort of crappy game or app they want on the XBox 360/PS3/Nintendo Wii without having to run it by Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo or without having to apply for/purchase an expensive license to even get a developer kit. Until then, it's just Apple hate.

- Victor Ganata

Well, yes. But OTOH MS at least has the Indie games section of the XB Live market, where games are community-rated, not by MS, and you just need the (free?) XNA SDK. And I vaguely understand Sony has some semi-open secondary system too. And Android phones have the option to install non-Market apps.

- Andrew C

iPhone OS does include one of the fastest and most open-standards-compliant browsers out there. Native apps are a convenience for most things. There is always that choice.

- LogEx

From what I understand, while you can distribute XNA based games freely in Windows, you have to pay $99/year to distribute them to XBox 360 users. I can't find anything about Sony having a free SDK. As far as I can tell, closed models are the rule among consoles, and realistically, the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad are a lot like consoles.

- Victor Ganata

To say iPhone/iPad are more like consoles is a mistake. What makes an android phone not a console while the Apple equivalents a console?

- Piaw Na

Ah, I had only dimly remembered- Sony supports (?) Linux on the PS3, but I don't think they support using the graphics chip, so you basically won't be making games that way.

- Andrew C

The difference is that Apple waits until you've completely finished your product before denying it. Microsoft (not sure about Sony or Nintendo) has to accept your game at the concept level before you even begin to work on it. If it doesn't get accepted, there's always XNA with the other massage apps. And once it gets posted, they're unlikely to remove it without notice because they decided to change their standards.

- Rob H.

Rob H. ++. I think it's really really lame to remove an app that's already approved. If Sony or Microsoft did that you bet there'll be protests. But Apple gets a pass because the net is full of their fanboys.

- Piaw Na

R* got both PS2 and Xbox GTA:SA pulled **from retail** thanks to the Hot Coffee incident, which admittedly was due to (sort of) sneaking something by the gatekeepers and there were few if any protests. They resubmitted with the cut content actually cut and that was that. I do think Apple should have rolled out the 'explicit' (or whatever) category first and dumped all the racy apps there rather than pull them for a few weeks.

- Andrew C

Here's my favorite bit. One of the 5,000 apps Apple pulls is a Dead or Alive Blackjack game from Tecmo because it contains a girls in a bikini (http://deadoralive.wikia.com/wiki/Girls_of_DOA_BlackJack) . If Sony, MS or Nintendo were to do the same thing to a long established publisher like Tecmo, you don't think there would be criticism?

- Rob H.

Android devices are consoles as well, they just have the most open policies. Maybe the problem is that Apple's development process has such a low barrier to entry. Maybe they should have expensive SDKs you have to buy, instead of giving it away for free, or maybe an annual fee to allow release on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, so that such things wouldn't happen. Would that decrease the hate? :D

- Victor Ganata

Where's the hate? iPhones are still selling like hot cakes, and developers are still writing more apps.

- Piaw Na

Victor, I'd have to agree with that. Apple gives the idea of being an open marketplace by accepting a great majority of apps, but get backlash when someone hits that vague, always moving Apple approval barrier.

- Rob H.
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tommy payne posted a message on Twitter
February 26, 2010 6:23 PM - Sign in to comment - Link

I'm at Crunch - Polk Street (2330 Polk St, Union, San Francisco). http://4sq.com/8dN7VO

- tommy payne

Miraculously my headphones weren't hopelessly tangled today. #goodday (@ Crunch - Polk Street) http://4sq.com/8dN7VO

- tommy payne
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felix shared an item on Google Reader
February 17, 2010 4:25 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
Capacity crunch, isn't that a breakfast cereal? RIM's Mike Lazaridis seems to have been a real grouch at MWC this week as apparently he hasn't stopped talking about the doom and gloom awaiting mobile carriers over the next few years. Focusing on the bandwidth-hungry North American market, Lazaridis has criticized the apparently irresponsible network saturation growth, which he sees as being primarily driven by app-centric operating systems. If you're wondering who he could possibly be referring to, let Mike clarify it -- according to him, you could carry five BlackBerry devices for each iPhone on a network. As evidence of his firm's focus on efficiency, he points us to that freshly demoed WebKit browser, which he claims uses a third of the bandwidth required by the competition from Apple and Google. If only he wasn't implying that owning a BlackBerry would save the internet, Mike's sales pitch would be rather compelling -- those are mighty impressive numbers he is citing.

RIM CEO claims we are staring 'down the barrel of a capacity crunch,' should all get BlackBerrys to prevent it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink 9 to 5 Mac  |  sourceDaily Telegraph, Economic Times  | Email this | Comments

isn't that actually just embarassing for the blackberry? "We have phones that you can't do anything with!"

- felix
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