Tag Archives: Technology/Internet

Backed By Former Google Exec & More, Twigmore Brings Travel Networking To Facebook

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There are a lot of sites popping up these days trying to make travel recommendations better and more precise. Some, like Triposo, are making travel apps based on algorithms, while Trippy wants to give you social, “friendsourced” recommendations via Facebook, or rapidly growing sites like Gogobot, which provides a gamified, Yelp-like platform where you can leave reviews of destinations you visit and get recommendations from your friends.

These are all great options, but sites like Trippy, CouchSurfing, and more are off-Facebook platforms that connect to the social network through Facebook Login. A new travel site launching today, called Twigmore is cutting out the middle man and launching a travel network directly on Facebook. Twigmore Co-founder and CEO Stephen Smyth tells us that many feel that travel network is a natural extension of the Facebook platform but they don’t want to sign up through an off-site application to get their recommendations.

Smyth says that, with Twigmore, he wants to put people, not places, at the heart of a travel platform; while most travel websites focus on places, offering pictures of hotels, restaurants, etc., Smyth says that it’s not only friends and people we inherently trust that give us the best travel recommendations — the best insight and tips come from people who actually live at these destinations.

The problem is, however, that it’s hard for travelers to find trusted locals who can answer questions, show them around, or just help when things come up. Twigmore wants to tackle this obstacle by connecting travelers with locals through friends. That’s where the co-founder thinks they can gain a leg-up on other travel sites: By helping travelers find real people on the ground wherever they travel.

On Twigmore, when a user is planning a trip to Berlin, for example, they may discover that a friend knows someone who’s currently living in the city. If the traveler likes live music, with a couple of clicks through their Facebook profile, they can discover what kind of music the person likes, get introduced to the local contact for a scoop on concerts, and perhaps even go see a concert with the person when they get to Berlin — and make a friend in the process. What’s more, Twigmore users can get notified if other friends are going to be in the city at the same time.

Smyth says that the idea for Twigmore was inspired by the Facebook-focused professional networking approach of Branchout, which is basically like LinkedIn for Facebook. In the same way, Twigmore wants to become Lonely Planet for Facebook.

Twigmore also wants to offer its own recommendations for things to do when people arrive at their destination, a starter kit, if you will. They’ve just begun adding features there, and have started with Groupon Deals for some discounted activities for people to during their stay in 100+ U.S. destinations.

Smyth also said that he wants the product to be 100 percent personalized, and thus far users can only interact with friends or friends-of-friends in Twigmore — no strangers to be found. He also said that he sees an opportunity (a la Airbnb) for the platform to become a place where people can find homestays with trusted friends (and friends-of-friends) while they’re traveling so they can save money on hotels and lodging.

Twigmore was founded in October 2009 in New York City by media executives Stephen Smyth and Peter Baer, formerly of Thomson Reuters and Warner Brothers, respectively, and in just a few months of beta testing, Twigmore users have already built a database of over 1.7 million local contacts in over 38,000 cities around the world.

The startup has raised $275,000 to date from angel investors including Shaun Abrahamson (investor in Zocdoc, Trialpay), ex-Googler Ien Cheng, and Glenn Asano.

For more, check out the site on Facebook here. Let us know what you think.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/18/backed-by-former-google-exec-more-twigmore-brings-travel-networking-to-facebook/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/18/backed-by-former-google-exec-more-twigmore-brings-travel-networking-to-facebook/

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Amazon Makes Kindle Fire Source Code Available

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Amazon has made the Android-based source code of the Kindle Fire available for download. It’s quite large — over 800 megabytes — and won’t be of any use to casual users. It will, however, enable some custom builds of the software and ROM hacking in the future.

Naturally, lots of the Kindle Fire is not, in fact, open source development. What they’re releasing is likely (no one has taken a close look just yet) the heavily modified Android 2.2 code on which their custom OS is based.

While this release probably won’t have many surprises, based as it is on quite an old version of Android, it will include vital information for hackers. Custom libraries, APIs, drivers, and so on — though there will be plenty Amazon won’t share as well, original code not covered under any open source license.

It will be interesting to see if the hackers can perform optimizations and hacks without disturbing what I am sure is a delicate balance between the underlying OS and the tightly-integrated Amazon services. Providing the source code so promptly is clearly a gesture of goodwill by Amazon, but that doesn’t mean they have to make it easy for people to modify their devices. For example, rooting has been shown to break streaming in some cases.

The device has already been rooted; we’ll update as soon as there are first significant developments in the Fire hacking scene. Update: a quick perusal of the forums and I find that many Google applications (GMail, Maps, Reader) are working if you sideload them, but some have a few idiosyncrasies in the install process.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/amazon-makes-kindle-fire-source-code-available/

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Thar’s Money In That Long-Form Non-Fiction: Longreads Founder Headed To Read It Later

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Mark Armstrong founded his site, Longreads, in 2009. Using Twitter hash tags, the site simply aggregated user’s picks for the best long-form non-fiction on the web, offering a poor man’s content curation engine. Now, two years and thousands of stories later, Armstrong will be joining Nate Weiner’s Read It Later as editorial director, where he will collect and curate content for that app’s users.

“Over the past two years with Longreads, I’ve learned so much about the importance of ‘time-shifting’ in helping make long-form content more accessible to more readers on the web. Read It Later now has nearly 4 million registered users, and I think there’s an incredible opportunity for publishers, curators and creators to use the platform in new and valuable ways. That will be my focus,” he said.

“We’re in a golden age of storytelling right now on the web, and I think Read It Later is in a perfect position to support that work, across all major platforms. We’re excited about what’s next.”

Mark (pictured) was the former director of content atBundle. He noted that while this is a paid position with the company, he will continue running Longreads, supporting it through reader donations and subscriptions.

Read It Later completed a $2.5 million funding round in July, including investments from Foundation Capital, Baseline Ventures, Google Ventures, and Founder Collective. The service has just under 4 million registered users and over 250 apps connect to Read It Later for offline reading. The Android and iOS apps see about 10,000 downloads per day.

Mark and I started talking shortly after he launched Longreads. We would routinely have conversations about the space and our views on where it was headed. We never had an agenda or were working together at the time, but just enjoyed the thoughtful discussion. He just got it,” said Weiner.

“So this year, after I raised and grew from one to many, Mark and I talked again and realized it was the perfect time to bring him on board. Mark is now helping forge new paths with publishers, writers, and developers who are interested in changing the way people consume articles, videos, and content online and off.”

Luckily, even with all his responsibilities, Armstrong will still have a moment to peruse some long-form non-fiction.

“Longreads is continuing as it always has: It’s an independent four-person company, and my role with Read It Later will allow Longreads to expand and improve our service to the community. Read It Later has been a huge supporter of Longreads since the very beginning, and what we do is very complementary. Also, in case anyone’s wondering, I’ve always operated Longreads alongside other content strategy work — so, yes, I’ll still have plenty of time to read,” he said.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/thars-money-in-that-long-form-non-fiction-longreads-founder-headed-to-read-it-later/

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Live From Google’s Special “These Go To 11″ Music Event

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We’re here at Mr.Brainwash’s Studios in Los Angeles, waiting for a Google “special event” to start at 2pm PST, where the company is most likely going to announce the Google Music store, because that’s what everybody and their mother is saying.

We’ll be live blogging the announcement here at 2pm but you can also watch it on the UStream above.

2:01 – The event is definitely music-related. We’ve been given notebooks that say “Google Music” on them and the music in here is really really LOUD. Also the walls are covered with painting of artists like Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix.

2:07 —  We’ve been told to take our seats. It doesn’t look like that many people are here. And the event still hasn’t started. I’m a huge fan of Danny Sullivan’s joke about how it was delayed due to SOPA.

2:11 — Okay it’s started, and they played a video of a turntable switching disks to introduce Google’s Jamie Rosenberg. Rosenberg begins talking about the Google Music beta, and the experience of its million users. Google distributed more than 100 million songs with the beta.

2:14 – Rosenberg says that Google has activated 200 million Android devices and that Google Music is now open to everyone in the US.

2:15 – Google Music is now officially available at music.google.com. It will be free and allow you to stream over 20,00o songs. The tagline is “Turns music lovers into music promotors.”

2:17 – Once a song is available on Google Music, it’s available across the web and on all your mobile devices.

2:18 — The app is integrated with the Android Market, like we reported, and you can buy songs directly from the new Music section. The Music homepage will feature “Staff Pics” and “Promotions.” Every artist’s page will feature recommendations and the app has social integration with Google+. Shares to Google+ will include one free play for a user’s friends.

2:23 — Every day Google will feature a free song of  the day in the Android Market. We’re being shown a Coldplay video as an example of exclusive content available on the Android Market.

2:25 – The music store is sorted by artist, song, and album, with artist bios and images on each page.

2:26 – So Google has just announced aGoogle music store, a new version of the music market, an updated version of the web players and new Android and iOS apps.

2:33 – Google is announcing exclusive partnerships with The Rolling Stones, who will put six concerts online as well as Coldplay and Busta Rhymes, who is actually at the event.

2:28 – Universal, Sony EMI, Merlin Records and independent record labels have been announced; Over a thousand labels participating and eight million tracks live today.

2:31 – Execs from Universal, Sony EMI and Merlin are on the stage, “We are very excited about the global roll out of the platform via Android devices.”

2:31 Google Music will also be launching with exclusive content from artists, The Rolling Stones, Busta Rhymes and Coldplay.

2:38 Google is now describing Artists pages (called Hubs) at music.google.com/artists, which artists can set up for $25. Artists will be able to sell songs on YouTube against their music videos. Google talks about how artists like DJ Tiesto are already using the Artist Hubs.

2:43 T-Mobile is here because T-Mobile customers will be able to pay for Google Music directly through their phone bill. T-Mobile guy is talking about their 4G network, saying that mobile audio makes up 15% of the data on their network.

2:46 – T-Mobile guy is talking about exclusive content deals with again Busta Rhymes and Maroon Five. “Exclusive” keeps getting brought up over and over again.

2:48 – “Music you won’t find anywhere else” is seems to be Google’s competitive advantage here.

2:49: The talk ends with “Google Music is open for business.”

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/live-from-googles-music-related-special-la-event/

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Hipster shoppers, rejoice. You can do all your Etsy holiday shopping for those one-of-a-kind crafts on your iPhone, or anymobile phone with a proper browser for that matter. Etsy just launched its iPhone app, along with a new mobile website. You can browse everything from arty crochet, knitting, and quilts to handmade children’s clothes and jewlery. Just like on the regular handcrafted marketplace. Both the iPhone app and the mobile site feature large photos of the items to make visual browsing easy. You can search by tags, or regular keyword, or browse by category. The app has some well-thought out social sharing features also. Any item can be shared via Twitter, Facebook, email, or SMS. The app encourages you to sign in with your Etsy ID so that you can favorite items and add them to your cart. And of course, you can shop straight from your phone. The search is actually really deep for a mobile app. If you search for “hats” for instance, you just keep getting an infinite scroll of new hats (mostly knit hats, for some reason). Then you can filter the search by location (buy local!), price, relevance, or recency. Etsy sellers can also use the app to manage their shops, see what items are selling, get alerts, and even make minor updates.

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Today at its ‘These Go To 11‘ special event, Google just announced that Google Music — which launched over the summer in a private, invite-only beta —  is open to everyone.

The service allows you to upload your music library and stream it to all of your other devices. And while Google had initially stated this would be a premium service after the Beta ended, it has some good news: it’s going to continue free of charge. You can upload and store up to 20,000 of your songs without having to pay anything.

Google is also fixing Music’s biggest issue: you’ll now be able to purchase music via Android Market, which will let you purchase ‘millions’ of songs. Users can listen to 90 second previews before they buy.

There’s also some deep (and siginficant) Google+ integration: buy a song, and you’ll have the option to share that song to Google+ — and your friends will be able to listen to the entire song without having to leave their Google+ stream. They won’t have to buy anything and they won’t need to sign into a different account. This is big.

Update: I just shared my first song to Google+ using this feature, and there’s one catch Google didn’t mention: only people who are in your Circles can listen to the full track — if someone has Circled you (i.e., they’re following you), but you haven’t Circled them back, then they’ll only get a sample of the song.

Google Music’s new features are available immediately via music.google.com, and updated Android apps will be released in the next few days.

The labels who are on board: Universal, EMI, Sony Music (the holdout from the ‘big 4′ is Warner). Also includes numerous indy labels, ioda, The Orchard, and others.

To help get people to check out Google Music, Google has secured exclusive music from major artists, including some free tracks. Among the bands offering exclusives: The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Busta Rhymes, Shakira, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band.

The Stones will be releasing 6 live concert albums, which haven’t been released before.They’re launching one concert album initially, and will release the five others over 2012. Busta Rhymes will be debuting his new album exclusively on Google Music.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/google-music-opening-for-everyone-features-full-song-sharing-to-google/

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In Time For The Holidays, Etsy On Your iPhone

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Hipster shoppers, rejoice.  You can do all your Etsy holiday shopping for those one-of-a-kind crafts on your iPhone, or anymobile phone with a proper browser for that matter.  Etsy just launched its iPhone app, along with a new mobile website.

You can browse everything from arty crochet, knitting, and quilts to handmade children’s clothes and jewlery.  Just like on the regular handcrafted marketplace.  Both the iPhone app and the mobile site feature large photos of the items to make visual browsing easy.  You can search by tags, or regular keyword, or browse by category.

The app has some well-thought out social sharing features also. Any item can be shared via Twitter, Facebook, email, or SMS.  The app encourages you to sign in with your Etsy ID so that you can favorite items and add them to your cart.  And of course, you can shop straight from your phone.

The search is actually really deep for a mobile app.  If you search for “hats” for instance, you just keep getting an infinite scroll of new hats (mostly knit hats, for some reason). Then you can filter the search by location (buy local!), price, relevance, or recency.

Etsy sellers can also use the app to manage their shops, see what items are selling, get alerts, and even make minor updates.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/holidays-etsy-iphone/

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As Google Music’s First Carrier Partner, T-Mobile Lets You Charge Tunes To Your Monthly Bill

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We’d been wondering why T-Mobile was lurking about at Google’s Music event, and we’ve finally cleared things up: T-Mobile will be Google Music’s first carrier partner, allowing their subscribers to charge their track purchases directly to their monthly bill.

This isn’t the first time T-Mobile has been quick to have Google’s back; the world’s first Android phone, the G1, launched exclusively on T-Mobile’s shelves months before anyone else had an Android handset of their own.

They were also the first US carrier to support carrier billing for purchases made through the Android Market — an integration which today’s move obviously builds upon.

T-Mobile also claims that they’ll have a fair amount of Google Music content available exclusively for their subscribers — but outside of some free tracks from Drake and Maroon 5, they didn’t make many suggestions on what that might be. Don’t worry, though, non-T-Mo folks: you probably won’t be missing out on anything too crucial.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/as-google-musics-first-carrier-partner-t-mobile-lets-you-charge-music-to-your-monthly-bill/

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Keen On… Microsoft: The Supreme Decathlete (TCTV)

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Roger McNamee might think that we are in the midst of the revolution, but according to Microsoft Chief Strategy and Research Officer Craig Mundie, the race to become the dominant technology company of the digital age hasn’t really even begun yet. Mundie, whom I interviewed yesterday in Tucson, Arizona at Techonomy, believes that the last ten years have actually been a prelude to a technological contest that is still in its warm-up stage. And, of course, Mundie believes that Microsoft is the odds-on favorite to win this race once it actually gets going.

“It’s a decathlon”, Mundie described today’s grand contest to make computers into sensory machines that mirror our speech and our sight. And given Microsoft’s undoubted strength right across the technological board – from PC’s to tablets to cloud servers to software services to cars – Mundie says, his company is the only one positioned to be able to compete in every sphere of what he calls this “profound revolution.”

The winner of the Olympic decathlon is often called “the world’s greatest athlete”. Whatever else one might say about Mundie and Microsoft, you can’t fault their ambition. But is Mundie – who, after Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, is as influential as anyone at Microsoft – correct? Could the old war horse from Redmond still surprise the world by retaining/regaining its title as the world’s greatest technology company?

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/keen-on-microsoft-the-supreme-decathlete-tctv/

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Verizon Welcomes Users To The Opt-Out, Ad-Targeting Party

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Verizon Wireless finally got around to sending apolite email to customers informing them that everything they do on their phones is now used to target them with ads. Policy changes implemented last month allow it to employ browsing history, search terms, location, app and feature usage, and demographic information it buys from other companies to power targeting. At least Verizon didn’t title its privacy demolition notice “Greater Choice” like Google did this week. Users can opt out by phone or Verizon’s website. Still, I see an alarming trend developing. Major digital service providers are implementing opt out data grabs, and their peers figure, “Why can’t we be evil too? Worst case is the government stops us all.”

In just the last two days The Rootkit Of All Evil was discovered, Facebook revealed it tracks 90 days of users web browsing with cookies, and Google hit an anti-privacy homerun  with its complicated “nomap” location cataloguing opt out. Mobile device makers and web services giant are taking an “EFAP (easier to ask for forgiveness than permission) approach. If regulation eventually comes down, they’re going to make sure they get as much data as they can first. This provides little incentive for other companies not to follow suit.

Verizon definitely scores points for titling the email “Important notice about how Verizon Wireless uses information”. Also, for laying out a clear grid of what data it’s using and how, shown below. The changes were added to its privacy policy a month ago, so even users who follow the email’s opt out instructions may have already given up data.

Most people only get automated billing notice emails from their wireless provider, so this will probably be ignored or overlooked by the majority of Verizon’s users. The privacy fun doesn’t stop with ad targeting, either. Verizon can use all the data to generate business and marketing reports of anonymized data for itself as well as other companies.

AT&T graciously asked mobile users to opt in to ad targeting a few months ago. I bet they’re feeling like a goodie two-shoes now. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it and other companies join the trend and launch more aggressive strategies to slurp up monetizable data.
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Genbook, The eScheduling Solution For SMBs, Passes 10 Million Appointments Scheduled

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It always annoys me when I want to make an appointment, whether it be for a haircut or a doctor’s visit, and I go online to make said appointment only to find that the company or provider doesn’t offer eBookings. You would think that, if airlines have managed to do it, most businesses might have followed suit by now. Online scheduling software enables customers to book appointments from their browser, reducing friction for them, and streamlining workflow for SMBs. And, hey, even Siri can schedule appointments.

Of course, for SMBs, adding a scheduling option to their website can be a pain in the ass. Or, at least the prospect of building a calendar app/module can feel like a pain in the ass. Which is why there are companies like Genbook, which offer local merchants the ability to automate their appointment scheduling through cloud-based software that can integrate with SMBs’ existing software — or allow them to introduce that capability.

Genbook’s solution adds a “BookNow” button to merchants’ websites and Facebook Pages, so that customers can scroll through available times, schedule and confirm their appointments with a few clicks. The online appointment and CRM platform is accessible from any computer, iPad or iPhone or Android smartphone, and for merchants, Genbook automatically collects and publishes customer reviews to help promote local merchants within their communities. And they’re genuine reviews, not just canned comments.

While Genbook has competitors like Schedulicity, Appointy, and BookFresh, each of which offers a similar service with varying limitations on how much functionality you’ll get for free (Genbook is free for 30 days, and then it’s $20 a month after that), the startup seems to be having some success. (Even though a lot of startups have opted for freemium plans to monetize, and I’d like to see Genbook do the same.)

Today, Genbook is announcing that it has scheduled over 10 million appointments for SMBs in the U.S., and has scheduled more appointments in 2011 than in any of the four years it’s been around. Just in October, local businesses scheduled 500,000 appointments.

The cloud scheduling platform has attracted 5,000 customers, which it says consists of businesses like massage therapists, spas, photographers, chiropractors, etc. — obviously any small company that requires appointments to do business.

And for those SMBs, as one can imagine, this can have a positive effect on their bottom lines, as scheduling software that lets customers book in realtime, at any time of day, can prevent no-shows and reduce friction. What’s more, plugging that capability into a social network via Facebook Pages, for example, extends the reach and can presumably provide a boost to customer acquisition.

And at less than $250 a year for solo operators and less than $500/year for SMBs, it’s not a bad deal. For more on Genbook, check out the video below:

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/genbook-the-escheduling-solution-for-smbs-passes-10-million-appointments-scheduled/

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