Monday, March 12, 2012

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

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As Waiting Period Expires, Rockstar Consortium Is Ready To Roll With Patent Licensing

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 09:20 AM PDT

nortel

After forming a strange alliance to score control of Nortel Networks’ patents, Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony, and Ericsson can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Now that a Department of Justice waiting period has finally expired, the members of the so-called Rockstar Consortium can finally finish up their $4.5 billion acquisition of the one-time telecom giant’s hefty patent portfolio.

The Department of Justice gave the Consortium their blessing this past February, noting that the expensive transaction was "not likely to significantly change existing market dynamics." Now that the waiting period is over and done with, the members of the Consortium can effectively go to town on the over 4,000 wireless and networking patents that were locked away in Nortel Networks' treasure chest. According to Rockstar CEO John Veschi, the companies in question will begin to license those newfound patents shortly, though Rockstar representatives couldn’t be reached for further comment.

"We are pleased to emerge from this review process, and are looking forward to working with technology related companies to provide them with access to Rockstar's technology," he said in a release. In short, Rockstar is itching to license their patents, and strike deals with companies that are "harnessing its intellectual property." As Robin Wauters notes on The Next Web, those sound like fighting words, and that's exactly what another one-time Nortel bidder was concerned about.

Google was keen to get their hands on Nortel's sizable patent bundle after the telecom firm filed for bankruptcy, as evidenced by the $900 million bid they placed last April. For a while, it seemed like a matter of course that Google would easily win the auction, though the prize was ultimately claimed by the Rockstars listed above. Not that I can blame them — $4.5 billion is nothing to sneeze at when you’re going bankrupt and dealing with $4.5 billion in debt.

The official Google reaction at the time was tepid at best — SVP and Google General Counsel Kent Walker issued a release that said the the outcome was "disappointing for anyone who believes that open innovation benefits users and promotes creativity and competition." Sure, it may have been lacking in righteous ire, but the point still stands. Google was worried that putting these many patents into the hands of a group that consists of major market players like Apple and Microsoft could potentially put the kibosh on companies trying to innovate.

Google was quick to move on though, and these days they’re patiently waiting for their own patent-related hail mary to pass regulatory muster. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission have given their (somewhat hesitant) approval to the $12.5 billion Motorola buyout, and now the search giant is waiting for final approval from China, Israel, and Taiwan before the deal can officially come to a close.



Is PayPal Preparing To Reverse Its Erotica E-book Stance? The EFF Has A ‘Good Feeling’

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 08:56 AM PDT

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A development on the ongoing story about PayPal and requirements it made on e-book distributors to remove certain kinds of erotica from their catalogs: there are signs the eBay-owned company could be preparing to reverse its position as early as this week, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The digital rights group has been among those meeting with the payments company in recent weeks, as part of a process to get PayPal to reconsider its decision. The last meeting between the EFF and PayPal was on Friday, and its activism director, Rainey Reitman, told TechCrunch that she left with a “good feeling,” with PayPal’s general counsel indicating that they would be “discussing it internally and might even be able to make a public statement in the next week.”

The EFF, she notes, specifically has requested that PayPal “update their policy so that this type of legal fiction would not be affected.”

The news — or potential news — caps off a tumultuous few weeks for the payments company over its role in deciding what content is appropriate or not to sell via its payment system.

The story started in February, when PayPal issued a mandate to e-book distributors requiring them to remove form their catalogs erotica that contained references to bestiality, rape and incest — or else face a ban on doing business with PayPal. (I wrote about it early on here.)

Mark Coker, owner of one of the sites affected, Smashwords, disagreed with the mandate but also noted that his hands were tied with complying:

“It is with some reluctance that I have made the decision to prohibit incest-themed erotica at Smashwords,” he wrote at the time in an open letter to Smashwords’ partners.

That’s because PayPal plays such a big role in how the company is run: it’s used not only for book purchases, but it’s also how he pays authors, Coker told me today.

Coker also told me that in fact less than one percent, 1,000 books, of his company’s catalog were affected, but that such mandates on what is essentially legal fiction (even it’s not your own cup of tea) is a “slippery slope.”

And it turned out that the issue became a slippery slope in itself, with the news then getting picked up by Reuters, Forbes and a number of other blogs. The EFF, meanwhile, launched a letter-writing service to protest what it described as “holding free speech hostage by clamping down on sales of certain types of erotica.”

The PR situation was not helped last week, when it emerged that PayPal was partly laying the blame at the credit card companies. But at least one, Visa, washed its hands of that: “Visa had no involvement with PayPal's conclusion on this issue,” it told Madeline Morris at the Banned Writers blog.

With public reaction to the mandate mounting, PayPal approached Coker and others like the EFF to discuss ways of working through the issue.

To be fair, PayPal has since also tried to make further clarifications itself: “PayPal does allow its service to be used for the sale of erotic books. PayPal is a strong and consistent supporter of openness on the Internet, freedom of expression, independent publishing and eBook marketplaces,” its head of communications, Anuj Nayar, wrote on the company’s blog. “But we draw the line at certain adult content that is extreme or potentially illegal.” It then specified that certain erotica with pictures might fall on the wrong side of that line.

Complicated and confusing? Yes. And as Coker notes, partial concessions will likely only more questions now and in the future. “If they don't go all the way [and reverse this mandate] this issue will just get reopened,” he told me today.

Now, it appears, PayPal may be thinking along those lines, too?

We have reached out to PayPal and will update this story as we learn more.

[image: SiGMan, Flickr]

Why You Need To Back Young Rewired State Right Now

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 08:51 AM PDT

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Even as the UK government seems keener than ever to promote the technology sector as an engine of much needed growth – especially startups – there’s a programme right under its nose which has been running for years which needs help, and now. Young Rewired State has been running annually on very low funding for a while.

The philanthropic arm of Rewired State, YRS is a network of developers aged 18 and under whose primary focus is to find and foster the young children and teenagers who are driven to teaching themselves how to code.

YRS is aiming for a pretty low £20,000 to cover the hardship funds for the kids who cannot afford to travel the events as well as some of the essential costs at their big event this August. You can back it here.

It’s an incredible initiative and I’ve seen some amazing talent at their showcase days – definitely the Zuckerbergs of tomorrow. However, corporate sponsorship has been very difficult to raise of late.

That means the non-profit has had to turn to a crowd sourcing platform for funding, namely Peoplefund.it which is a sort of British clone of Kickstarter.

YRS seeks those kids out and mentors them primarily through a week long hack event in the Summer. After this they are automatically a part of the growing network of young developers across the UK. One of the bi-products of YRS is the strong alumni network. Once the YRSers get to 19, they volunteer to return year on year to mentor the younger ones.

Founder Emma Mulqueeny deserves huge respect for keeping YRWS alive and is a tireless campaigner for teaching young people to code. I daresay there are many more like her across Europe.

Suddenly I realise I am not aware of other similar initiatives so if you know any, please put them in the comments.

Meanwhile give them some love on Facebook and Twitter.

Nokia Exits Mobile Payments Business With Shuttering Of Nokia Money

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 08:18 AM PDT

nokia-money

Nokia is announcing today it plans to shut down its mobile payments service known as Nokia Money in India, as a part of a shift in strategy that will allow the company to more narrowly focus on its handset business and related location-based services offerings. According to a company spokesperson, “the mobile financial services business is not core to Nokia, so we plan to exit the business.”

Nokia Money was available in India, and had previously been expected to roll out to other emerging markets.

The news, reported by Reuters this morning, notes that Nokia Money only became available across all of India by late last year, but had been on track for further expansion.

For those unfamiliar, Nokia Money was first announced back in August 2009 as a service that allowed users to send money to friends, merchants, and service companies simply by using their phone numbers. It was later showcased in early September at the Nokia World conference, and then began to roll out to regional markets in 2010.

The service was powered by Obopay, a company Nokia was the lead investor in, when it raised a $70 million round in spring 2009. Unlike the new efforts to turn smartphones into digital wallets here in the U.S., Nokia Money was after feature phone users in emerging markets, where many have pre-paid SIM cards but not bank accounts. The service allowed the “unbanked,” and especially those users in rural regions, an alternative means to pay for goods and services besides using cash.

More recently, the mobile payments market has been seeing increasing interest from credit card companies, mobile operators, and even technology companies like Google (with its Google Wallet) and PayPal, all of which believe that mobile payments could potentially be a big business in the future as consumers move away from cash and smartphones become more prevalent. In fact, there are now 130 deployments of mobile money services worldwide, according to the GSMA, and 93 more in the works.

The exit from the mobile payments business is a reflection of Nokia’s new efforts under CEO Stephen Elop to hold onto its position as a leading handset provider in a world that’s been rapidly shifting to smartphones, and in particular iPhone and Android devices. Nokia partnered with Microsoft, killing off its own Symbian smartphone OS, and is now the top Windows Phone vendor in the world. However, it’s so early in the race, it’s still unclear that Windows Phone will even be able to establish itself as a third ecosystem in terms of mobile operating systems. It’s an effort that requires Nokia’s full attention, and financial services were likely a large distraction from that battle.

Nokia Money isn’t the only service to have received the axe in recent days. The company also announced earlier this month it was closing up its Ovi Share service, a web service where Nokia hosted users’ content online. So far, Nokia Life, the company’s suite of information services for emerging markets covering agricultural, healthcare, educational and entertainment offerings, has been spared.

Empire Avenue Revamps Interface, Adds Google+ Scoring

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 08:00 AM PDT

empireave

Empire Avenue, while a great service, has been a bit confusing. In fact, the idea itself can kind of boggle the mind — users build up their personal brands via Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, and allow people to buy and sell virtual shares of human beings. Users can also turn the value of their web-based contributions into actual revenue by tapping into an advertising platform used by the startup to deliver relevant and targeted ads, while buying and selling virtual shares in any other user is free.

It’s actually pretty nifty once you get it, but reaching that point of understanding can be difficult. That’s why Empire Avenue has relaunched with a brand new interface, which is meant to make things easier to use and more straight-forward.

The first in a variety of improvements comes by way of content visualization and engagement. The new version has a tile-based interface, allowing you to reply and retweet tweets, comment on Facebook content, enjoy a YouTube video or two, explore new blog posts, tap into Instragram and more. Oh, and you never have to leave Empire Avenue.

“Missions” have also been revamped, allowing content creators to reward their audiences for viewing and engaging with online profiles. Perhaps this means commenting on a post or rating a YouTube video.

But if Empire Avenue really wants to be the social stock market (which it does), then it can’t continue on without integrating the Crunchie award-winning Google+. Luckily, Google+ scoring has been added to the service, joining forces with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Foursquare, LinkedIn, WordPress, and various blogs.

If you feel like checking out the new and improved Empire Avenue, check it out here.



London Web Summit Startup Winner Will Get A £50,000 Convertible Loan

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 07:59 AM PDT

lws

Consider this the last warning you’ll get that the London Web Summit is coming next Monday, plus we’ve now secured a £50,000 convertible loan for the winner of the startup competition from DFJ Esprit. You have five hours left to get an Early Bird ticket. You can also vote for your favourite European startup in the People’s Choice Award.

#LWS will be on March 19, in The Brewery Venue, in London’s East End, already the single biggest cluster of tech startups in London. The conference features Niklas Zennstrom, one of Europe's top tech entrepreneurs and investors, Google's Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora as one of a number of keynotes, including Shervin Pishevar (Silicon Valley VC), Lars Hinrichs (HackFWD), Jason Goldberg (Fab.com), Morten Lund (Tradeshift/Everbread), Ben Parr (formerly Mashable), Reshma Sohoni (Seedcamp) and Alex Dauchez (Deezer) among others.

The Summit will see 20 startups demo with the winner picking up £85,000 in prizes including a simple, no strings attached loan from DFJ Esprit. The loan converts into equity at the company's next round of financing.

In addition, legal eagles Orrick have offered £15k in legal services, KPMG have will give £15k in advisory services and HP will give the winner £4k in hardware.

We hope to see you there.

Pete Cashmore Denies CNN Acquisition Rumor To Mashable Staff

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 07:44 AM PDT

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The hot SXSW rumor is that CNN is looking to acquire Mashable for some $200 million. But right now it’s just that: a rumor. In fact we just heard from a trusted Mashable staffer that founder and CEO Pete Cashmore is denying the reports to senior level Mashable editors. But that might not mean anything. Mike and Heather gave us TCers the same line up until Tim Armstrong showed up at Disrupt.

The initial rumor came from Reuters blogger Felix Salmon and later confirmed by the NYT’s Brian Stelter. The announcement is reportedly coming tomorrow, March 13th.

If true, the move would dramatically strength CNN’s presence in the blogging space. CNN.com is one of the most popular go-to news sites in the States and Mashable, with its massive network of partner sites, would greatly extend CNN’s reach.

We also heard that Mashable’s Executive Editor, Adam Ostrow, inadvertently “liked” the original Reuters report — although I’m sure his potential payday likely did the clicking.

Despite Backlash, Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Hasn’t Impacted Google’s Market Share

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 07:37 AM PDT

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ComScore has released its search data for February 2012, and Google continues to lead, gaining 0.2 percentage points over the previous month, up to 66.4% in February from 66.2% in January. Microsoft sites, which includes its Bing search engine, also continued to hold second place, up just 0.1 percentage points to reach a 15.3% share. Yahoo, meanwhile, dropped 0.3 points to 13.8%, down from 14.1% in January.

None of the numbers are all that remarkable, which, when you think about the changes Google recently introduced to its core product involving the fusion of social and search, is actually somewhat remarkable.

Trailing the three search leaders were Ask Network at 3.0% and AOL, Inc. (disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by AOL) with 1.5% of the market.

In terms of explicit search queries, the rankings remained the same, with Google at 11.7 billion queries, followed by Microsoft at 2.7 billion and Yahoo sites with 2.4 billion. However, all three were down by 1% in terms of queries from January. Ask Network, with 535 million queries was up by 2% in the same time frame and AOL with 266 million queries was down 4%.

In “Powered by” searches in February, Google gained, going from 68.4% in January to 68.6% last month. Microsoft’s “powered by Bing” search, which includes Yahoo, dropped slightly, from 26.5% in January to 26.2% in February.

One thing these results do show is that Google users have not yet been so turned off by Google’s search engine changes, including its introduction of social search known as “Search Plus Your World” (SPYW), to have actually migrated over to another competing search portal. Introduced in early January, SPYW adds search results from Google’s social network, Google+, above other organic search results surfaced by Google’s engine. There has been a lot of grumbling about the changes, but nothing that has impacted Google’s use as a search engine. (Google’s public image may be another matter, though).

In addition, it’s also too early to see the results of Google’s decision to merge all its user privacy policies under one umbrella, a change that went live on March 1st. That move had raised the ire of some privacy advocates, but it’s unlikely that this will result in bottom line impacts to Google searches, either.

TCTV Will Be Live From Austin 3pm CT (1pm PT) With What’s Hot From SXSW

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 07:29 AM PDT

Austin

Mark your calendar. Tune in to TechCrunch later today for a special show, live from the Austin Convention Center at SXSW. TCTV’s Colleen Taylor will host a roundtable with TechCrunch writers who have been running around the city non-stop. They will tell you about the best and worst of what they saw and might discuss TechCrunch Real World Austin. We’ll also speak with the Founder of the much talked about mobile awareness app (yes, it needs a better description) Highlight, Paul Davison.

Other top guests include Dave Morin, Founder of Path; Adam Goldstein, Co-Founder of Hipmunk; and Robert Scoble.

The show will be produced using the Tricaster at Newtek’s studio. If you are in Austin, join us on the 1st floor of the exhibit hall at Newtek booth #713.

If you can’t see the show in person, we’ll have a post later with our Ustream player or catch it at techcrunch.com/video.

We will be monitoring your questions and comments on twitter at #sxswcrunch.

Wikipedia: The… is the debut extended play by South Korean boyband JYJ, a group formed of three of the five members of TVXQ. It was released in Japanese language under Rhythm Zone, the band’s former Japanese label as a part of TVXQ. The release was commercially successful, reaching number one on Oricon’s weekly albums chart. →

Need A New Car? Gilt’s Selling A 2013 Infiniti JX For Half Price Today

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 07:21 AM PDT

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The flash sales fiends at Gilt are no stranger to the idea of putting their customers into new cars — they cut their teeth on a deep discount promotion on three 2011 VW Jettas, and recently hooked up with Range Rover to help one lucky customer snag a 2012 Range Rover Evoque Prestige.

Now Gilt is giving luxury car maker Infiniti a crack at their style-savvy audience with one hell of a lunchtime deal. At 12PM EST today, a brand new, fully kitted-out 2013 Infiniti JX luxury crossover will go live on Gilt.com with a full 50% slashed off its sticker price.

Make no mistake folks: even with a half-off discount in tow, the new Infiniti deal is one of the most expensive Gilt has ever offered. Customers looking to stake their claim on the new JX should be sure to have a cool $27,425 on hand later today, and while that's certainly too rich for my blood, it's bound to pique someone's interest. After all, it's not like Gilt has any trouble selling big ticket items: the sale of a $24,000 vintage Rolex to an iPad user caused a minor stir last year, though in fairness watch geeks are a pretty obsessive bunch.

Now I can’t speak for everyone but no matter how great the deal is, I always feel a weird pang of guilt whenever I make a big purchase. Thankfully, whoever manages to nab the JX should have their conscience eased a bit by the fact that Gilt will donate the car's full retail value to Coaches vs. Cancer.

Eric Schmidt-Backed Video Surveillance Startup Prism Skylabs Adds Integrations With Google+, YouTube And Picasa

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 07:00 AM PDT

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Prism SkyLabs, a cloud-based service that allows business owners to bring video feeds online, capture images from these feeds and share this data with consumers and the public, is announcing integration with Google+, YouTube and Picasa today.

Here’s how Prism Skylabs works: Most stores and restaurants have surveillance videos running 24-hours a day. Unless there is a theft or another crime that takes place in the establishment, this massive amount of surveillance video is unused. The startup allows a business to download free software that detects cameras or video on a network, and showcases a number of images of the space to the business. Similar to the way you can pull images from videos using a video editing software, Prism Skylabs pulls relevant images of your establishment and builds insightful visualizations from these photos, while protecting customer privacy.

For example, Prism Skylabs can extract a visualization that will show the path that people are taking in a store (which can help owners gain insight into the performance of design or display), a heatmap of bodies, a photo without any people in the store and more. And Prism Skylabs allows users to share and syndicate these photos directly from their platform to a business’ Facebook page, Twitter stream, website and Yelp profile. Today, the startup is adding the ability to add these photos to Google+, YouTube and Picasa, directly from the platform. Additionally, Prism Skylabs also allows users to monitor Google+ check-ins at their businesses.

The startup is also announcing a key hire from Google— Matthew Kovinsky as vice president of business development. Prior to joining Prism Skylabs, Kovinsky helped start the "Online-to-Store" initiative at Google, which helps multi-channel retailers measure the impact of online advertising on physical store sales. He also launched Google's cost-per-acquisition affiliate advertising network and developed commerce ad formats for AdWords and AdSense.

Prism Skylabs, which launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last Fall, raised $1.5 million from the SV Angel, Yuri Milner, Eric Schmidt, Aaron Patzer, Brad Garlinghouse, CrunchFund and others.

Wikipedia: Which? is a product-testing and consumer campaigning charity with a magazine, website and various other services run by Which? Ltd. →

When It Comes To Shopping, Mobile Web Trumps Apps – Led By Amazon, Says Nielsen

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 06:27 AM PDT

NIELSEN Mobile Retail Apps and Websites Top 5 Reach

There’s been lots of debate about whether mobile apps or the web have the upper hand when it comes to making content for smartphones, and when it comes to using it. Some interesting insights from Nielsen out today on how in the case of mobile shopping, for now the main audience in the U.S. seems to be much more interested in using the mobile web over store-specific apps.

The research, which took into account data from some 5,000 Android and iOS smartphones in the U.S., doesn’t spell out how much money is actually spent on mobile web versus apps. And it looks like at least in the period covered by the research — which included the holiday shopping season — the results may have been particularly skewed by the sheer force of Amazon.

Nielsen notes that combining both mobile web and apps, the top five retailers’ sites — Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Target and Walmart — reached 60 percent of smartphone users. But as you can see in the table above, apps appeared to attract half as many users as mobile web sites did each month.

Nielsen also notes, for what it’s worth, that men are more likely to use apps than women, who opt for mobile web sites. And more men than women visited Best Buy on mobile, while Target and Walmart attracted more mobile women. eBay and Amazon, it seems transcend these lines, attracting both in equal measures.

But as you can see from the table below, it seems like the market had something of an Amazon effect on it: Amazon’s own mobile website had a disproportionate amount of traffic compared to the others. That could have contributed to the overall picture of apps having less usage than the mobile web sites:

But whether retailers are using apps or mobile web (or ideally both) to target users, there seems to be another, probably more important message about the state of mobile shopping, and what retailers should be focussing on fixing:

In the case of both apps and web, while users spiked during the holiday season, that was not sustained by any of them: “By January, active reach was back to October 2011 levels,” notes John Burbank, president of strategic initiatives at Nielsen.

Nokia Lumia Windows 8 Tab Coming Later This Year?

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 06:24 AM PDT

nokia-tablet

Nokia and Microsoft, sitting in a tree. K.I.S.S.i.n.g. First came WinPhone, then comes ARM tabs, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!

If an unconfirmed Digitimes report is to be believed, Nokia is set to release a 10-inch Windows 8 tablet later this year. The report says the tab would hit the streets sometime in the fourth quarter, which would likely make it among the first batch of Windows 8 tablets. It’s reportedly built on a dual-core Qualcomm ARM chipset allowing Nokia to keep the price competitive with the iPad.

But the timing is perfect. A Nokia tablet, if it’s built to the same quality standards as the Lumia 800/900 smartphone, is exactly what Microsoft needs to kickstart Windows 8 and properly fight the iPad.

Right now Nokia is winning. The company leapfrogged HTC and Samsung in just one quarter to become the top Windows Phone vendor. Consumers are loving the Lumia product line; The Verge’s Chris Ziegler declared that he might replace his Galaxy Nexus with the 900. They’re great products and are quickly making fans. By the time this tablet rolls around, it’s completely plausible that Windows Phones, led by the quality Nokia Lumia line, will be the new iPhone alternative. People are going to want companion tablets.

There is still plenty of room for another tablet platform. iOS is the dominant platform, but outside of highly curated devices like the Fire and Nook Tablet, Android has struggled so far. A Windows device led with a smart and powerful marketing campaign could break the iPad’s tight grip.

Microsoft needs an instant fan favorite to get Windows 8 off the ground. Samsung, Asus and HP’s recent stumbles show they cannot be trusted with such a task. Windows 8 does not need a clusterstorm of Galaxy Tab-ish devices. The platform needs a flagship device to rally behind. Nokia is the only vendor I would trust with the task. I’m that taken by the Lumia 800/900.

It wasn’t that long ago that Nokia was all but dead. But then they signed a deal with Redmond that essentially saved the company by forcing it back to its mass-market roots. The company is still producing a gaggle of low-cost handsets, but its affordable Lumia Windows Phone product line is classic Nokia: solid plastic feel, a forever battery life, and reliable software. Hopefully a Nokia tablet would be more of the same.

Digitimes cites sources at upstream component suppliers for its info. There’s really no way to verify the report. However, Nokia has long talked of a Windows 8 tablet; one is on its way. It’s going to have a seemingly no-win situation no matter when it launches. If this latest report is correct, the Nokia tab would have to battle not only the new iPad but also likely a new Amazon Fire. If Nokia pushes the launch until 2013, it would have to fight for market share against the new new iPad. Still, it’s important to remember that it’s never too late to launch a great product. Hopefully a Nokia/Windows 8 tablet will be such a device.

Infographics For Everyone: Visual.ly Launches First Automated Tool Out Of Beta

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Facebook visual.ly infographic

If you are among those who feel that we see too many infographics these days, be prepared for a little more eye candy: Visual.ly, which offers an online tool to create instant visualizations of data, is launching its first public product out of beta.

The service will let users take publicly-available data such as information from a Twitter hashtag or a Facebook feed, and then select a template (currently five, with each having two to three variations within it) to instantly visualize it. It will also team up with third parties and brands to offer other data feeds to users: one, for example, will involve sports statistics from ESPN.

While infographics seem like the kind of thing that would mostly be the domain of number-crunching analysts and journalists, created for consumption by the wider public, the use of Visual.ly’s beta — launched last year — testifies to there being a bigger audience for actually making these pictures firsthand.

Stew Langille, the company’s founder and CEO, tells TechCrunch that since launching that beta, it has seen the creation of over 11,000 infographics and seen 2 million visitors per month. And more than than 500,000 people have used the specially-created Twitter Visualizer since it launched in July 2011.

“There’s a reason why we’re seeing so many infographics,” he says. “It’s because it’s just a better way of telling a story.”

The company also continues to work directly with companies to create custom infographics for news organizations as well as brands — these have included Showtime, Smirnoff and Cisco — and Langille concedes that for now this is where the company’s primary revenue generation lies. Another important partnership for Visual.ly, he notes, is with Tableau Software, the business intelligence software company — that could point to the kind of place where Visual.ly might land itself one day.

But for now, the company, which has raised $4.4 million to date and is likely to go for another round in Q4, is still focused on building out more ways of visually representing data and ways of then offering that for use by everyday people. Langille, and his co-founder Lee Sherman, both hail from Mint.com, and as with that site, which attempts to make personal money management tools into something usable by everyone, the idea is that Visual.ly can also have a wider remit.

He talks of the impact that blogging sites like WordPress, Pinterest and  even Facebook’s Timeline — in itself a kind of constantly changing infographic — have had on how people have chosen to be creative online.

WordPress he singles out also for the role that “crowdsourced” design has played to usher in that process: the idea is that someday Visual.ly will have the same kind of design repository for representing information, and that information could then be used anywhere. “We want to turn data into something that is really beautiful and usable.”

eBay Debuts Standlone ‘Couch Commerce’ iPad App To Purchase Items, Watch With eBay

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 06:00 AM PDT

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Over the holidays, eBay and PayPal both pushed the term 'couch commerce,', in which consumers use their tablets and mobile phones from the comfort of their couches. In fact, eBay launched a new feature of its iPad app called Watch With eBay, which allowed users to shop a selection of items on the marketplace related to what they are currently watching on TV. Today, eBay is separating out the feature into a standalone, free iPad app.

The Watch With eBay app surfaces merchandise related to what consumers are watching on television, from the latest fashion trends at red carpet awards shows to sports memorabilia, to DVDs, signed autographs and other items related to favorite shows and actors.

As eBay says, a reported 86 percent of mobile Internet surfers use their smartphones and tablets as their "second screens" simultaneously while watching their favorite shows. While many consumers look to eBay with a specific intent for an item, eBay believes there is tremendous potential in engaging people when they are not necessarily on a shopping mission.

The app itself includes a program guide consumers can use to access content related to their favorite television shows in real-time with the ability to curate content by category. Users tap "Watch with eBay" and type in their zip code, cable provider, channel and the program they are currently watching; and using show and event-specific key word searches, the app will surface relevant merchandise from the more than 300 million listings available on the eBay marketplace.

Consumers can browse or choose to eliminate a keyword to pull up the most relevant listings. For example, a New York Yankees fan watching a Yankees vs. Red Sox game can filter out "Red Sox" and view listings only for the Yankees.

Another feature called eBay Celebrity gives users an inside look at featured celebrities' favorite items, and eBay will curate shopping results related to the celebrity picks and provides the option to donate to a benefiting charity at check out. Some celebrities will interact with consumers through original content, video and message boards.

As eBay mobile VP Steve Yankovich tells us, “apps on TV don’t work. It’s about providing a second screen experience.” He feels the app’s ability to add product discovery to the TV watching experience will attract a lot of consumers. Already he says, Watch With eBay on the marketplace’s standalone app has become a popular feature among users.

Consolidation In Chinese Online Video: Two Biggest Players, Youku And Tudou, Are Merging

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 04:32 AM PDT

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The online video market in China is a fragmented scene dominated by national portals where sites like YouTube don’t even get a look in; but today sees that market move one step closer to consolidation, with the news that the two largest video portals, Youku and Tudou, will be merging in an all-stock deal, to take control of nearly half the online video market in the country.

The merger caps off a period of intense rivalry between the two, which included spars over TV rights and the ability to index each other’s content on respective sites. Now, it seems all that is water under the bridge: the companies say in a release that the new company will be known as Youku Tudou, and shareholders in Youku will own 71.5 percent, while Tudou shareholders will have 28.5 percent.

The combined entity, according to figures from iResearch (via TechInAsia), will control 49 percent of the Chinese online video market, with the next-biggest being Xunlei at only 11.3 percent.

The market for online video in China is still in its early days — Analysys International says that the market only brought in $267 million last year — so this deal could be seen as laying the groundwork of sorts for the next step ahead.

Indeed, Youku and Tudou are playing this as “the next phase in online video development in China,” in the words of Youku’s CEO and founder Victor Koo. Most significantly, that will include unprecedented audience scale against which to sell advertising as well as have leverage in premium content negotiations. But it will also mean a huge content library, the most extensive distribution/bandwidth infrastructure and the biggest portfolio of technology to improve the experience and better monetize it.

But although the two are combining, it looks like Tudou intends to retain its own distinct brand in the group. That is important because although its market capitalization is smaller — $402 million compared to Youku’s $1.93 billion (FactSet Research Systems via WSJ), its audience still made up 18.8 percent of all video streams in the country pre-merger. That points to some customer affinity and loyalty that would be crazy to abandon in a market with so many choices.

The companies say that both boards have now approved the transaction, although it is still subject to SEC clearance in the U.S. because both are publicly listed. The two are holding a call later today to talk more details, with a live webcast at 8 a.m. Eastern time to be broadcast here.

Social TV App Peel Adds Real-Time Cheering To American Idol

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 04:00 AM PDT

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There are loads of startups trying to build a social TV experience that goes beyond checking in to your favorite TV shows. Now social TV app Peel is taking a stab at it, and it’s aiming at one show in particular: American Idol.

The new version of the Peel app (which, to be clear, is not officially connected to the show) will provide a parallel experience as you watch. As each contestant takes the stage, you can tap the screen to either boo or cheer them — not just once, but as many times as you want. Maybe one cheer for their song choice, and then a boo as they stumble, and then three cheers as they hit a particularly tough note. A sliding bar shows how much the entire participating audience has booed and cheered, and you can boo and cheer the judges as they rate the singers. Plus, there’s a button to tweet your thoughts as you follow along.

Once one singer finishes, the app automatically slides the next contestant in place for the same treatment. (Apparently this synchronization is achieved through the amazing technology of having someone watching the live show on the East Coast and hitting a button as each new singer goes on — the timing is then transposed to other time zones.) After the voting is done, the results are displayed in a leaderboard, showing how the performers stacked up against each other, and with iTunes links to download the songs.

Vice president of marketing Scott Ellis demonstrated the app for me last week. He says the company is trying to strike a balance, creating an app that’s engaging but not so much so that it completely distracts you from the actual TV. This initial attempt is more on the simple side, and over time, Peel will probably add more features. For example, Ellis says he’d like to add a button allowing people to cast their vote for their favorite contestant on American Idol itself (i.e., determining the real winner, not just the one in Peel). The company could also add slides with additional content for various commercials, as one possible monetization strategy.

This experience could be extended to other competitive reality shows too — Ellis says Dancing With The Stars is the next likely candidate. However, he also says the format might be tweaked to fit with other television genres as well, like drama.

You can download the Peel iPhone app here.

Social Discovery Apps Like Highlight Are A Recruiter’s Wet Dream At SXSW

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 03:50 AM PDT

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The history of location-based social discovery apps is a lot longer than the current hype surrounding Highlight and Glancee, currently darlings of the South by Southwest festival.

Back in 2007 TechCrunch’s founder Mike Arrington noted the existence of social mobile apps like Lime Juice, Rummble, Mig33, ZYB, Mocospace, Aka-Aki, Nokia Sensor, Dodgeball, Mobiluck, MeetMoi and Imity, just to name a few. The problem was none had critical mass, in part because smartphones were still thin on the ground. Nokia’s Sensor app was way ahead of its time, but only worked on Nokias and via Bluetooth to “see” who was around you. Aka-Aki had a little more success out of Berlin for a while but in recent years has been eclipsed by newer players. Badoo remains the one to beat in this sector, with 115 million users and many using it via mobile apps.

The first uses of these types of location based ‘social discovery’ apps appealed, shall we say, to the baser instincts: hooking up with people for fun and frolics. But there’s a new use on the block and it’s rearing its ominous head at South by Southwest: recruiting.

I first became aware of this when a friend in a startup posted a comment on the status update of Venture Capitalist, who in turn was complaining about the battery-sucking properties of Highlight. They said:

“Our recruiter has been using it to find really solid digital people he wants to poach.”

Bingo. Because the very interesting aspect of these new apps is this: They are usually set to expose your profile in public as a default. Few people are enabling “friends of friends” only on the privacy settings, and perhaps there are plenty of people at SXSW who feel relaxed about discovering new people anyway.

Even then, you only need to be a friend of a friend of a recruiter and they will be able to look into your Highlight profile and check out whether they should be wooing you for a client.

Is this going to lead to companies asking employees not to use these apps? Will we see lawsuits along the lines of those we’ve seen pop up around people’s use of LinkedIn, in terms of making themselves open to offers from other companies? It’s very, very early days – so who knows. Apps like Workaround.me don’t run in the background yet, though they probably will begin to soon enough.

So the next time you’re approached by someone at a tech event and it turns out they’re a recruiter, check whether they got to you via your social discovery app or not. The answer may prove very to be interesting.

Ahead Of US Launch, Wrapp Opens Its SoMo Gift Card App For Business In The UK

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 03:20 AM PDT

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With $10.5 million in funding behind it, Wrapp, an app that lets users buy gift cards from a variety of retailers and send them on as presents, is now launching in the UK as both an Android and Apple app, its first step beyond Sweden in an international strategy that will also see the company come to the U.S. later this year.

To kick off the service, the app is offering gift cards from a variety of top UK retailers — a sign not only of how these shops believe enough in the product to give it a try, but a mark of where the app’s creators are looking to pitch the business longer term. The list includes ASOS; the retail group Aurora Fashions (which includes high street fixtures Coast, Oasis; Warehouse and Karen Millen); and the gym chain Fitness First.

Wrapp only launched in mid-November 2011 in Sweden but in that time it has seen some impressive growth, with 150,000 consumers buying nearly 1 million gift cards since opening for business.

Although many retailers have moved into offering their own mobile apps to drive sales, Wrapp believes it fills a hole in the market for aggregating all of these together in the area of gift cards: “Most retailers have their own apps, but they also like to be grouped with others for visibility, just as they like to be on high street and in shopping malls,” says Hjalmar Winbladh, a co-founder and CEO of the company.

And similar to Shopkick, the point of the app for those retailers is to actually drive more sales in the brick-and-mortar environment. But there are also signs of how Wrapp is not just about bricks-and-mortar plays: also included in today’s launch list is iSubscriber, covering magazine and newspaper subscriptions for 2,000 titles, as well as the language learning software Rosetta Stone and Theater Tokens, which lets users buy tokens to exchange for theater tickets at some 240 different venues.

But there is also a limit to how far this will go. Winbladh notes that Wrapp has no intention of taking any steps into becoming a kind of mobile wallet, managing the shopping experience on behalf of others. Indeed, that is a space that has become increasingly crowded with many other players, too.

The UK is a fitting first international market for the company: the country already has a £4.5 billion industry in gift cards, which already account for 12 percent of retail sales, according to the UK Gift Card & Voucher Association. It also helps that the UK has a very big smartphone (and iPhone) market, with more than 50 percent penetration.

And that’s because at the moment, to gift or use a gift card with Wrapp, you need either an iPhone or Android smartphone: to collect a gift card you click on the link sent to you in email, text message (SMS) or on your Facebook wall, which lets the user automatically download the Wrapp app. To use the card, you select the card you want to redeem, and then show the resulting barcode to the cashier, which then gets scanned to complete the transaction. You can see how eventually this app could be extended to work on non-smartphone devices, too.

Wrapp is worth watching not just because it is tapping into a service, gift cards, that has yet to be really disrupted, but also because of its impressive list of founders and backers. Winbladh is known as a serial entrepreneur in Sweden, and this is his fourth startup. The first, SendIT, was sold to Microsoft in 1999 for $128 million. He also founded the VoIP giant Rebtel.

Other founders include Andreas Ehn, an early CTO of Spotify; Carl Fritjofsson, strategy advisor to Groupon.se; Aage Reerslev, founder of mobile browser Squace; and Fabian Mansson, former CEO of H&M and Eddie Bauer, who now serves as Wrapp's chairman. (That also begs the question of when H&M might join the Wrapp party: Winbladh laughed mysteriously when I mentioned this to him on the phone, so it may be that we’ll see that announcement come up soon enough. That would be a big boost for the company, given how popular H&M is in its home country of Sweden, the UK and the U.S.)

Investors, meanwhile, are also an illustrious bunch: they include Greylock Partners and Atomico, the VC firm formed by Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype, KaZaa and other companies, and Creandum. As part of the most recent round from January, Greylock partner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joined Zennström, and Creandum partner Johan Brenner on Wrapp's board of directors.

While Windbladh would not say what the rest of the company’s plans might be in terms of its international expansion, the languages listed as supported by the app in its App Store view could point some way to an indicator of where it might be expanding next: they include, in addition to English, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Romanian, Russian and Spanish.

Crush Your March Madness Pool (And Win $100K) With numberFire

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 03:00 AM PDT

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March Madness is about to start, and for many friends and co-workers, that means it’s betting time. This year, however, RRE Ventures-backed startup numberFire wants you to make those bets based on real data and math.

The company just launched a new Facebook app called the March Radness Challenge. The problem, says CEO Nik Bonaddio, is that most people have no idea who’s going to win each game in the basketball tournament. That’s where numberFire comes in, bringing what Bonaddio calls a “MoneyBall-ish” approach to sports: “The data is there, so let’s use math and the power of big data/distributed computing to unlock the secrets of what’s actually going on, and then use that to understand what will happen next.”

The app allows you to create a March Madness pool, and it handles all the scoring. As you’re filling out the bracket, it also displays a “need help?” link. If you click on it, you’ll see the numberFire projection for the game, as well as the analytics and data behind that projection. That way, you’re not just betting based on instinct and sentiment. (Disclosure: I know pathetically little about March Madness, but TechCrunch writer Rip Empson assures me that the app is “cool” and “crazy smaht.”) (Yes, he said “smaht” in an email.)

numberFire also partnered with StubHub to offer $50 gift cards as a prize to the biggest groups in the app, and with Thrillist for recommendations on where to watch the games. (Thrillist is also helping with marketing.) And if you pick every item correctly, you’re eligible to win a $100,000 prize.
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