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The Simplest Stable Structure
July 26, 2009
TechCrunch
Google finally sold back its 5 percent stake in AOL to Time Warner. Originally valued at $1 billion in 2005, Google ended up getting back only $283 million, including some cash distributions. There goes roughly $700 million, but Google already ...
Last week, we wrote about the Bing Cashback contest that rewards Bing searchers with a chance to win a $500 gift card. Well, the contest is in full swing, and if today is any indication, to win, you dont even need to have the correct answer.
Today...
Remember all the brouhaha about Twitter trademarking the word tweet and subsequently having to explain that they were not exactly doing this to attack third-party app developers over the use of the word?
Well so far Twitter hasnt been that terribl...
Google Voice is a pretty amazing service, but it comes with a number of minor annoyances, including the way in handles outgoing calls and SMS messages. Fortunately, Google has recently come out with a number of smartphone apps for BlackBerry and Android that obviate the need for any extra steps, making Google Voice a natural replacement for your phones native dialer. The iPhone still lacks an official client, but that hasnt stopped a handful of third party developers from realeasing their own apps, which ...
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A few weeks ago a good source gave me a legal document written by a former federal prosecutor and senior Department of Justice official. It was arguing that social gaming company Zynga could be breaking multiple state and federal anti-gambling law...
One search engine dies, another takes a step forward.
This is a hard space to find a niche in, but the money at stake if you succeed is staggering.
Blekko, the stealth search engine weve been covering since early 2008, has raised a third round o...
The Internet got in a bit of a tizzy this weekend when it was reported that Twitter was banned from being accessed from inside the White House. What is this, Iran, some wondered? But have no fear, despite what White House Press Secretary Robert Gi...
While theres a lot of talk about Apples rumored tablet device as it relates to new initiatives from the music industry, the device is undoubtedly a lot larger in scope. The music-angle talk is mostly thanks to the Financial Times all-over-the-plac...
Jeremy Wright has stepped down as CEO of b5media, the blog network he helped co-found, mostly for unspecified personal reasons.
While Wright will remain a board member and shareholder of the venture-backed startup, he already has a replacement: Elaine Kunda will take over the reins as CEO from this point forward.
The decision apparently stems from the beginning of this year, when Wright took a short vacation and went offline for about 10 days. He writes:
I did it because I was tired, burnt out and recogni...
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Admit it: youve been thinking about learning a foreign language. Maybe youve been planning a trip to Mexico or were considering taking over a small, French-speaking colony in the Maldives. Regardless of your interest or your armaments, its always...
It hasnt even been 24 hours since we wrote about the impending launch of TweetMeme competitor ReTweet, and already TweetMeme founder Nick Halstead is threatening ReTweet with a lawsuit. He takes being king of retweets very seriously.
It is not s...
Friendster, one of the oldest social networks, is actively looking for a buyer and has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to find a party interested in acquiring the company or at least some of its assets.
According to documents obtained exclusively by TechCrunch, it looks like Morgan Stanley is shopping Friendster around in Asia, which makes sense considering almost its entire user base is located in the Asian-Pacific region. In the main document (embedded below), it says that 75 percent of its register...
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New iPods usually come out in September, right? There or thereabouts, at any rate. Well then maybe we should look into this report that says Toshiba will “ramp up” production of flash memory chips during the month of Auguest. Word on the street is...
Scout Labs, a SaaS dashboard that makes it easy to keep track of what people across the internet are saying about particular topics or brands, has added a new focus group-like feature that is worth a look.
The product, which we first reviewed in December 2007 while still in private beta, now includes a Quotes section which pulls in real-time quotes from people who are chattering or Tweeting about a brand or topic on the web. The feature scans the quote for sentiment, and breaks quotes down by positive, ne...
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ATT has made even more people than usual angry when it started blocking/filtering parts of 4chan late last night. The popular message board, famous for being able to brew online (and offline) shitstorms like no other web property could, saw portio...
How awesome is this? All credit goes to MeetTheBoss for creating this visualization (better quality image available when you click through), but it was too good not to share it with you.
Its a visual representation of Amazons acquisitions and in...
Breaking Now: Streaming music service Spotify has release a video of the iPhone app which theyve just submitted to Apple, which means it could be out in a few weeks. Theyve also revealed more of their business model - mobile access on any device w...
An interesting report hit the Financial Times today, indicating that Apple is working with all of the major music labels on a way to boost album sales. But the report is confusing in a number of regards, and is propelling new rumors that Apples ne...
Archive video has clearly exploded all over the internet, but live video hasnt. We think its because more flexibility is needed that no single product can meet, but an open platform can. Thats what Justin.tv VP of Marketing Evan Solomon tells us ...
Sandwiched neatly between the RealTime is God and RealTime Who Needs It crowds is a new group that embraces both positions while moving forward rapidly. These folks include Brett Slatkin of the PubSubHubub effort and Dave Winer of rssCloud.org. ...
A lot of readers were incredulous over last weeks news that Ning raised another $15 million in venture capital from Lightspeed Venture Partners at a $750 million valuation. That comes despite the fact that Ning traffic appears to be flatlining, an...
As if ATT wasnt already bad enough. In an act that is sure to spark internet rebellions everywhere, ATT has apparently declared war on the extremely popular imageboard 4chan.org, blocking some of the sites most popular message boards, including /...
May 30, 2009
TechCrunch
At this past weeks Google I/O event in San Francisco, Google brought a contraption it calls the Holodeck, for event-goers to experience. Basically, its a near-360 degree way to view Google Street View in fast motion, high definition video. Danny S...
Music service Last.fm shuts its doors for the afternoon, claiming datacenter temperature issues beyond our control required them to go offline. The outage began around 12:30 pm PST, so were at two hours and counting. Updates are on their Twitter ...
One thing I love about Facebook spokesperson Randi Zuckerberg - she says exactly what she thinks, and she isnt afraid to use the power of Facebook to back up her opinions.
Mean bar bouncers can lose their Facebook pages (this was later retracted...
When Fotonauts debuted at last years TechCrunch50, I called it a gorgeous photopedia because it promised to turn your photo albums into collaborative Web pages about different topics and subjects. Fotonauts is a desktop photo client which helps y...
Facebook will soon be allowing all users to claim a vanity URL pointing to their regular profile page, weve heard from a reliable source. The announcement should come sometime later this week. Afterwards, at a certain date and time, the landrush ...
Yes, Twitter is down. Yes, again. Yes, theyre looking into it. Yes, this is another Twitter post. But, I come baring gifts. Spymaster, the somewhat controversial and addictive Twitter-based game obviously doesnt work nearly as well when Twitter is...
Were less than a week away from the launch of the supposed next iPhone killer, the Palm Pre. The iPhone has miraculously survived a few of these attempts on its life before it somehow weathered the BlackBerry Storm, and before that, the G1 was go...
Life is not easy for search engine startups. FIrst, its hard to create something that doesnt fall flat against Google. Too much hype (Google Killer!), whether the company drives it or not, inevitably leads to disappointment.
Cuil is walking dead...
Bad news for Portland-based Open-ID startup Vidoop (as well as Vidoop partners like AOL, MySpace and Flock): its apparently out of business. Earlier this month the company announced layoffs, but based on an email string that was forwarded to us, t...