SittingAround, the new service that allows parents to quickly and easily find and schedule a babysitter online, is now getting their sitters clients equipped with Square credit card readers. CEO Erica Zidel tells us that, starting now, all sitters are being offered a free Square dongle as a part of the signup process on the website, and can then indicate whether or not they accept credit cards in their online profile. Parents, meanwhile, can now search and hire sitters based on the payment method they accept.

Granted, this may not be huge news, but it’s a perfect example of Square’s momentum and potential for disruption in the industry. In this case, Square isn’t the one that’s marketing directly to the babysitters – it’s the babysitting service that is. (And frankly, as a parent myself who never carries cash, it would be great if all sitters carried a Square. Having to make an ATM stop part of date night is kind of a bummer.)

Zidel also says that SittingAround is working to add other payment options in the future and plans on integrating these into the company’s forthcoming mobile app, due out soon.

Boston-based SittingAround has doubled its user base and now has over 7,000+ families on the site and 1,500 registered sitters since its launch at the beginning of this year. The site has coordinated over 3,000 bookings to dates since then as well.

While newer than more well-established players in the online child care space (like UrbanSitter, Care.com, etc.), SittingAround isn’t about leveraging Facebook to find social recommendations, but is rather about helping you bring your current “trust network” online – including both parents and sitters alike. It also offers unique features like support for babysitting co-ops, free background checks for parents and sitters, and a “date night deals” section so parents can fully plan their night out.

The site is free to use, as it’s currently ad-supported, unlike the paywalled Care.com. “We want sitters to look at their SitterProfile as their online babysitting resume,” says Zidel. “Because we have an open platform, this profile can be used wherever sitters respond to parents – on Facebook, through a local newspaper, from Craigslist, etc.”

With Square yet to reveal when or where it might offer its mobile payment service in Europe, and PayPal apparently still only talking with would-be partners, the door is wide open for more local players to jump in and pick up some market share. Sweden’s iZettle, which often gets compared to Square, is now doing just that: today it is launching its iOS, dongle-based mobile payment service to the UK, four months after its pan-nordic live launch, and as it is preparing to launch an Android version of its product later this year.

iZettle kicking off its service by giving away 3,000 card readers to small businesses and sole traders in the country as part of its invitation-only beta, which it is running in cooperation with MasterCard, American Express and Diners Club. In its still brief life, it has seen some decent traction in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, where it now has 50,000 active merchants on its network.

iZettle is filling a practical need in the current market. The initial aim of the service, according to Jacob de Geer, the founder and CEO, is to target not those merchants that already take card payments, but those who have never signed on to using anything other than checks, cash and invoices to accept payments. There are roughly 20 million small businesses in Europe that fall into this category, he says, with the “uncarded” ranging from sole traders like carpenters to small independent cafes. “We’re not trying to go after those with existing infrastructure because switching costs are too high,” he says.

De Geer will not yet reveal the total number or value of transactions or how many consumers that have used the service to date, except to say that the company is building out its infrastructure to keep up with the demand and has grown by 10 percent in recent months. What’s interesting is that, for now at least, the service seems to be attracting high-value transactions: De Geer says the average value of a transaction is €60 ($76), compared to between €10 and €15 for the average NFC transaction in the Nordic region. (In comparison, he notes that Square transacts between $8-10 per day on any given reader, but that’s an average number and it has picked up a huge number of merchants now.)

The iZettle service works similar to PayPal’s Here and Square, in that a merchant plugs a card-reading dongle into an iOS device to process a card payment using an app downloaded to the device. Instead of reading the magnetic strip on the back of the card, iZettle reads the chip — these are now near-ubiquitous in Europe and tend to be more secure. Like other card payment services, you sign on the device screen to complete a payment, and the funds are deposited in a merchant account the next day.

Similar to other payment services iZettle works on a commission basis — in its case a percentage on each transaction, with that percentage varying by country. It actually dropped a transaction fee it used to take only days ago — perhaps a sign of how the area is heating up and so offering more competitive offerings is essential.

For now, the service is only on iOS but De Geer says that Android is coming soon, “this year for sure.” He says that the delay was due to (surprise!) fragmentation across too many versions of the platform, and too many devices. But the evolution to Ice Cream Sandwich — the latest OS — is definitely making things more standardized, he notes.

One expansion that is not coming soon is to the U.S. Not only do companies like Square and Here have a lot of early business sewn up, but he also notes that “The U.S. is not too interesting for us given that they use the mag stripe and we focus on chip-and-PIN services.”

More interesting, he says, are markets like Asia and Latin America, where there is good chip-card penetration but card payment facilities are still relatively low among smaller businesses. Still, the next launches are likely to be in Europe, with Germany, France, Italy and Spain all on De Geer’s roadmap, with “one or two of those” expected to come online this summer. To date, iZettle has received venture funding of $16.4 million from Index, Creandum and others to fund that expansion.

Interested companies can either register a request through iZettle’s web site, or via its iTunes app, and the first 3,000 will get a free card reader to get started.

Another mobile payments service is hitting the market today, but unlike Square, Here from PayPal, or solutions from the likes of Isis, this one doesn’t require a dongle on the handset — or new technology like NFC — to work. Called Flint, the free app uses the camera on a handset to “scan” the account number from the front of a payment card, and uses that along with a customer signature to process the transaction.

And the company behind the app, Flint Mobile, today also announced that it has raised a Series A round of $3 million from two top-tier VCs, Storm Ventures and True Ventures, which it will use to further product development, hire more people and market the new app.

Flint, which is currently available only as an iPhone app, is one of the more simple-sounding payments apps. It basically works like this: a merchant — typically a small business owner — uses the iPhone’s camera to shoot a picture of the number on the front of a credit card; that picture then gets translated by the app into a digitized number; and a customer signs on the screen of the merchant’s device (using a finger is fine) to authenticate the number and approve the transaction.

The merchant can then use the app to send out a receipt, and also use the transaction as the basis of further “social marketing”, for example in the form of posting messages on a users’ Facebook page.

“Essentially, we are starting to turn credit card transaction fees into an investment in online customer engagement,” said Greg Goldfarb, co-founder and CEO of Flint Mobile, in a statement. (However, features like Facebook posts presumably will require opting in from the customer to work.)

Flint seems to realize that Square has made strong inroads already among small merchants using iPhones to make payments, and so not only is it trying to compete by making the app less hardware-dependent, but also on transaction fees: for people using debit cards the fees are 1.95 percent plus $0.20; those using credit cards pay 2.95 percent plus $0.20. That sort of splits the different with Square’s dongle pricing, which comes in at 2.75 percent per swipe. (Manually-entered cards cost 3.5 percent plus $0.15 with Square.)

The other area where Flint is perhaps more attractive is that it claims that funds are transferred right away, whereas Square’s processing is next-day.

For now you need to sign up to the beta via the company’s site here. The company says it will also be helping with “integration” — presumably helping customize receipts and the social media marketing aspect of the service — for a “select set” of distribution partners.

Mobile payments processing platform Square has been used by a variety of individuals and businesses, from charities to taxis to food trucks to political campaigns. Next up—art fairs and farmers’ markets.

The company says that at Etsy’s New York’s Spring Handmade Cavalcade last weekend in Brooklyn, over 90% of the vendors used Square to accept payments. And this weekend, Square says that many vendors at Unique LA, the largest independent fashion market in the country, will use Square to process card payments. Unique LA expects over one and a half million dollars to be spent in its market over the weekend.

It’s not surprising that Square is being used by independent purveyors at fairs and markets. The company’s smartphone dongle and companion payments app makes taking credit cards easy. The payments app has been a favorite amongst independent workers, merchants and small businesses for the past few years.

As reported a few weeks ago, Square is now processing $5 billion in annual payments (or around $416 million in payments per month), which is up from $4 billion in annual payments in March. And payment volume is up 25 percent over the past month. The company also just started making funds available in merchants’ bank accounts the next business morning (for any sales made before 5 pm), while other merchant processors can take 2 to 5 business days to get merchants their money.

SalesVu, the maker of a mobile payments service designed for business customers, is launching a major update with SalesVu 2.0, live now in the iTunes App Store. The company is somewhat similar to Square, in that it also includes a dongle that plugs into an iPhone or iPad and works alongside an accompanying mobile application. However, the company is focused on providing tools that address more complex business needs than simply taking credit cards via a mobile device. For example, SalesVu currently offers real-time analytics reporting and the ability for businesses to post offers directly to Facebook through social sharing mechanisms.

With the release of SalesVu 2.0, a number of improvements have been added for business users, including things like receipt printing, barcode scanning, employee timekeeping, and online order processing, to name a just few.

While competing in the same general space as Square, Austin-based SalesVu is different in that it has never gone after the market of individuals users who had always relied on cash-based transactions. Instead, its focus has been the business customer processing at least $1,500/month who was looking for a mobile payments solution with a specific emphasis on integration with other backend systems like order management, deals and discount management, and social marketing.

With the release of SalesVu 2.0, the goal is to better improve on the feature set these customers need. For retailers, the company has now added receipt printing and barcode scanning functionality, which customers demanded. They also asked for the newly added employee clock-in/clock-out function, which is now tied to SalesVu’s online timekeeping solution. Plus, SalesVu 2.0 has improved the close-out process with new cash drawer functionality also new in this release.

For restaurants, the company has added features like the ability to split checks, print orders to the kitchen, adjust tips at the end of shifts, and receive orders from the web. The online orders are also displayed in the SalesVu POS app for immediate processing, as opposed to being sent out as emails, as is typical with some online ordering integrations targeted towards the SMB market. This feature now also makes SalesVu a competitor to traditional POS systems, says SalesVu CEO Pascal Nicolas.

“The online ordering feature is probably the most important one we’re adding in this release,” explains Nicolas, “because we’re going from a convenience app to a revenue-generating app. These are orders that they may not have received, if they had not received them online,” he says. The feature was heavily requested by restaurants, for obvious reasons, but the functionality is available to anyone, including retailers, Nicholas adds.

Finally, for service businesses (think salons, spas, plumbers, etc.), SalesVu 2.0 has added the ability to route appointments from a business website to the app on the iPhone or iPad, and now supports the ability for the business to take a deposit at the time of reservation. Invoicing and recurring billing have been added, too.

Despite these business-friendly features, SalesVu’s biggest challenge for now is brand recognition and awareness – even Square itself isn’t a household name yet. Plus, one of Square’s bigger draws is that free dongle it hands out to any who ask. SalesVu, meanwhile, only gives out the first dongle per location for free and then requires businesses to pay $99 for each additional one. However, it has now dropped the monthly subscription fee ($9.95/month) for use of its cloud system in order to be more competitive.

SalesVu is also competing heavily on pricing, in terms of processing fees. To combat Square’s low 2.75%, SalesVu negotiated with its partner Mercury Payment Systems to take the risk and go even lower to a flat 2.7% in the U.S. In Canada, rates vary from 1.73% to 3.26% depending on card type, which means it’s (sometimes) lower than Intuit’s GoPayment. The company has a profit-sharing arrangement with Mercury which allows it to generate revenue from those fees.

Currently, SalesVu’s mobile apps have been downloaded 15,000 times, and now nearly 6,000 businesses have signed up and are actively using the system. The company is iOS-only for now, but plans to release an Android version this summer.

Twitter co-founder, and Square CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey sat down with Charlie Rose yesterday to talk about the two companies he’s developed as well as Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram and the “digital revolution.” The entire interview is just under 18 minutes, and is worth a watch, but here are some of the highlights:

Square

As Square revealed yesterday, the payments company is now processing $5 billion in annual payments (or around $416 million in payments per month), which is up from $4 billion in annual payments in March. Dorsey says that Square is moving fast, and this year will be expanding internationally, both to local shops and larger merchants. “We want to be the point of sale for every merchant,” he tells Rose.

He says that the best technologies disappear, and are relevant when you use them but get out of the way when you don’t. He believes Square falls into that category, especially with Pay With Square’s hands free payments experience.

Rose asked Dorsey which company has the biggest upside potential, Twitter or Square? Dorsey diplomatically answered that both companies did because of Twitter’s role in transforming communications and Square’s place in the exchange of value. “These are two foundational, essential things,” he added.

Twitter

Dorsey says that CEO Dick Costolo “is an amazing leader,” and doesn’t get enough credit for Twitter’s revenue products that were developed and driven very quickly. And he adds that the company’s revenue products (i.e. advertising) beat all of their goals last year. Dorsey also believes that Twitter can monetize and says that the company is seeing 3-5 percent engagement on promoted products.

“Twitter is more than where I wanted it to be…truly great companies reinvent themselves…our users are helping reinvent Twitter…,” he explains. As for how will Twitter change, Dorsey explains that the service will be more focused on discovery.

Instagram

Rose pointed out that Dorsey was an early investor in Instagram. Dorsey explains that co-founder Kevin Systrom was an intern at Odeo, where Dorsey initially developed Twitter. Dorsey, who says he taught Systrom javascript, recalls that even then, Systrom impressed him with his love for photography. Dorsey explains that it was this passion and pride in the craft to do it the right way that helped sell him on investing in Instagram. “Kevin is an amazing craftsman and I knew would build a company of craftspeople.”

On the whole Facebook acquisition, Dorsey said it made sense for Facebook to pick it up. In his opinion, this is because Facebook’s core competency is in photos. But Facebook is known for being in the past tense, he says. Instagram represented the present, the now, which are a lot of the ideas that Twitter brought into the world. His remarks are interesting, of course, considering the recent report that Dorsey and Twitter were interested in buying Instagram.

Dorsey is always a fascinating interview, so the video is worth a watch if you have the time.

Payments platform Square has released a number of new stats today, as well as good news for merchants using its mobile payments app to accept credit cards. According to a Bloomberg report, Square is now processing $5 billion in annual payments (or around $416 million in payments per month), which is up from $4 billion in annual payments in March. And payment volume is up 25 percent over the past month.

Square also says that it will be making funds available in merchants’ bank accounts the next business morning (for any sales made before 5 pm), while other merchant processors can take 2 to 5 business days to get merchants their money. This is a big win for merchants, who now have access to their sales revenue immediately.

And last week we heard that Square is looking to raise around $250 million funding at a $4 billion. Square’s CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey and COO Keith Rabois just wrapped up the 10-day trip to the East Coast to meet with institutional investors, including Fidelity and Legg Mason.

Payments company Square is raising another major round of funding, but is targeting institutional investors first because of the enormous size of the round, we hear from sources. Square’s CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey and COO Keith Rabois have met with both Fidelity and Legg Mason over the past week, and as AllThingsD reported earlier, Square is looking to raise at a $4 billion valuation, which we’ve confirmed as well.

In addition, we are also hearing that the company is raising around $250 million, which was originally reported in the New York Times. We hear Dorsey wrapped up the 10-day trip to the East Coast to conduct the raise.

Owen Thomas of the Daily Dot was the first to notice Dorsey’s and Rabois’ trips (broadcasted via Twitter) to Baltimore and Boston, where Legg Mason and Fidelity are based, respectively. Another potential institutional investor, T. Rowe Price, is also based in Baltimore as well. It’s notable that Rabois’ previous company, Slide, raised funding from Fidelity as well.

Square just raised $100 million in funding last year at a $1 billion valuation, so a $4 billion pre-money valuation is a huge jump. You also have to wonder what Square is raising another big round for. International expansion is on the horizon for 2012, and we know that the company is ramping up on marketing spend with a new TV commercial. Perhaps Square could be looking to make strategic acquisitions as well in the near future?

A spokesperson for Square says the company declined to comment on rumor or speculation.

We’ll keep you updated as we hear more.

I just happened to have my TV turned to the Cooking Channel (which is part of the Food Network) and saw a commercial for payments platform Square. This appears to be the first big commercial ad push for Square on TV. I’ve contacted Square for confirmation.

The commercial was pretty straightforward and featured a number of merchants that all use Square to accept credit card payments, including a hairstylist, tailor and mechanic. The commercial showed the merchants actually swiping cards from customers, e-signatures on the app, and mentioned that Square can be used on Android and iPhones.

It isn’t particularly surprising that Square is spending more dollars on marketing as it looks to expand merchant use. And the company now has competition from PayPal’s new mobile credit card reader and payments platform, PayPal Here.

Last year, Square put up a massive Times Square billboard in New York City, but this was paid for by a generous supporter, the company said at the time. It’s unclear if that was the case with this new ad campaign; however, Square certainly has the cash for a TV ad blitz after raising $100 million in new funding last year.

We’ll update this post with Square’s response and a video of the commercial, if we can find one.

Google has had a few teething problems with its ambitious mobile payments service Google Wallet, but it is also putting some money down to get it on the right track. Today the company announced that it would buy TxVia, a mobile payments technology company, for an undisclosed amount.

Osama Bedier, VP of Wallet and Payments at Google, says in a blog post that the acquisition will be used to “complement” the work already done on Google Wallet, Google’s service that enables payments, discounts and loyalty points — and the ability to make those transactions mobile using selected NFC handsets.

The news comes at the same time that Google Wallet is losing some of its key people, including Rob von Behren, one of the founding engineers, who has now joined mobile payments startup Square; and other competitors like PayPal continue to expand their own mobile payments operations.

Bedier is light on detail in his blog post, but he notes that Google and TxVia have already been working together for the past year.

But judging from TxVia’s business to date, this could be a play by Google to massively scale up the number of customers it touches. It also potentially gives Google a whole new raft of products that can be plugged into its payments service:

The work that TxVia has been known for in its five-plus years of operations has been around offering its products in a “platform as a service” model. That includes enabling mass-market prepaid cards, general purpose reloadable cards and gift cards — as well as more B2B-focussed initiatives like incentive payments, government disbursements, payroll and expense management. TxVia has relationships with all the major payment networks, and in all, it manages some 100 million accounts.

TxVia’s management team, which includes CEO Anil D. Aggarwal, EVP Jonathan Weiner and COO Mike Blandina, are all moving over to Google, the company says.

Square’s consumer-focused loyalty and mobile payments app Card Case, which debuted in 2011, has been pushing the envelope when it comes to the future of payments, allowing for hands-free, location-based payments, emailed receipts and more. And merchants have quietly been adopting Card Case in droves. Back in November, Square told us that 20,000 merchants had signed up for Card Case, which doubled to over 40,000 businesses in February, and is now at 75,000 businesses using the application. And today, Square is announcing a major update to Card Case, adding additional social and merchant discovery features to both the iOS and Android app as well as renaming the app “Pay With Square.”

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Pay With Square’s mobile app for iOS and Android allows you to fill the app with ‘cards’ of all the merchants they visit and buy from who accept Square. These mobile cards include locations, merchant contact info, coupons, photos, menus, comments and reviews from other customers, order and purchase history and more. The app also allows you to create a tab at a restaurant under your name without having to pull out cash or a credit card, as the app has your credit card info saved.

Last year, Square added hands-free payments in the iOS app for Pay With Square. Today, this functionality is being added to the Android app. You can opt-in to a geofencing feature in the app, when you (and your phone) are within 100 meters of a Square merchant you can simply walk into the store, say your name at checkout and you are good to go with the payment. You don’t need to pull your phone out at all or open the app.

On the backend, Square’s technology detects when you are near a merchant-enabled store, and the Merchant’s Square app will open a tab for the customer and show that customer’s account, name and photo as nearby. When the customer purchases an item, they say their name, and the cashier can verify that the photo matches the customer, and then press the transact button to send the charge through. The customer will get a push notification with the amount of the charge as well. The customer can also add a tip via Pay With Square after the transaction in case they forget.

The benefit for consumers and merchants is that it’s an extremely simple transaction—there’s no credit card to swipe, no receipt to sign, and no wallet to pull out. Square says this experience seems to be translating into meaningful revenue for some of the participating merchants using the mobile wallet. Some of the earliest businesses to accept Pay With Square increased revenue by nearly 25 percent as a result. And the trend is that Pay With Square users generally tip more using the app.

In fact, the entire UI of Pay With Square has been overhauled with an emphasis on discovering merchants around you so you can pay with your name. Square’s Director of Products, Megan Quinn tells us that when you open the app, it now features a carousel of featured merchants that are close to your location. You can also click to a map or list of all the merchants that accept Square around you, and search for merchants as well.

In the old app, you’d see the list of cards from merchants from whom you’ve bought items using the app, similar to a wallet. This redesign puts the emphasis on finding merchants and featuring the ones you buy from as well. As Quinn explains “We are refocusing the app on the discovery of local merchants…we’ve brought merchants to the forefront of the experience so customers can find them immediately. This update is about the discovery of local merchants and streamlining the payments experience.”

Another major update involves actually interacting with the merchant on the app. So when you click on a particular merchant within Pay With Square, you’ll now be able to swipe and choose to favorite a merchant, Tweet about a merchant, share a merchant to Facebook, SMS or email a link to merchant to a contact. The link that is Tweeted, emailed etc. leads to a mobile-optimized landing page that has information about the merchant, including location, hours, and pictures and more. These sites can only be accessed with shared via the app, and are updated in realtime by the merchants.

Clicking favorite for a merchant will save it in your favorites list. It’s sort of the equivalent (in the previous iteration of the app) of saving a card in your Pay With Square for easy access so you don’t have to find it again.

Besides adding additional merchant discovery features, Square is refocusing the brand of the app on differentiating between the consumer-focused experience and the merchant-focused experience. The company recently released a more full-fledged point of sale iPad app, called Square Register, which included in-depth analytics and more for merchants. Quinn explains that the new name reflects how consumers are actually using the app.

While this is just an update to Card Case/Pay With Square, you can see that Square is setting the framework for a more personalized, and interactive payments experience. You can imagine a merchant being able to serve personalized deals and offers to a customer based on previous purchase history or suggest items that the customer would enjoy. By favoriting merchants, you could also opt-in to a more personalized experience. This isn’t just about paying with your mobile phone, it’s about finding new merchants, receiving a more personalized payments experience, and facilitating an actual relationship between local merchants and consumers.

But Square isn’t the only payments company looking to connect small businesses with consumers. PayPal recently launched their Square competitor, PayPal Here, which allows merchants to accept payments by swiping cards with a thumb-sized card reader. Similarities to Square’s hardware and functionality aside, PayPal Here also allows consumers to use geo-location to find the merchants that accept PayPal in their local area. Essentially, PayPal is going after the same goal as Square, offering a competitive payments and fees structure, and eying international expansion.

Quinn commented on PayPal entering the space, saying, “Square isn’t just about accepting credit cards and building a mobile payments application. We are focused on building an ecosystem around payments and building meaningful relationships between merchants and customers and we feel like we are the only company doing that. We are continuing to focus on enabling merchants to have conversations with customers and nobody else is building a hands free payments experience.”

Square does have a leg up in that it has been innovating for well over two years, adding one million merchants using the payments experience and processing over $4 billion in payments annually. Getting to this scale, and continuing the grow is no easy feat, and right now PayPal will have to play catch-up.

Cashier Live, a Chicago-based, bootstrapped startup providing Point of Sale (POS) systems to retailers, has just launched a new iPhone app that moves a bit into Square’s territory – at least that’s the company’s claim. Simply called Cashier, the app is a complete POS system on the iPhone, and aims to compete with Square’s own Register app for iPad.

However, unlike Square, which has a broader focus on small and medium-sized businesses and even individual merchants who could never before afford to take credit cards, Cashier Live is 100% focused on retailers, specifically small and medium-sized retailers and franchises.

The company already has over 15,400 stores using its other product, an inventory management app called Retail Inventory, Cashier Live founder Tom Greenhaw tells us, so they’re expecting “solid traction” with the new Cashier app, too. The startup also has 6,630 businesses using its online cash register, Cashier Live, which the new iPhone aims to either supplement or replace. Today, all of those business customers will receive an email alerting them to the new iPhone app’s existence, he says.

While Greenhaw admits that it’s likely that Square will eventually bring its iPad-based cash register system to the iPhone (after all, the top review for the app is “please make this iPhone compatible!”), he’s excited to have gotten there first, at least.

To process transactions, Cashier Live has partnered with credit card processor Mercury Payment Systems. The transaction fees for this service vary and are set by Mercury, which means that in some cases, it may be higher, lower, or on par with Square. In other words, it’s not as disruptive an offering as Square, with its locked-in rate of 2.75% per swipe.

However, like Square, Cashier Live’s app doesn’t require a contract to use, and it will provide next-day deposits as well, so as to compete on speed. Merchant verification and underwriting will be provided by Mercury at this time, though, unlike Square, which manages this in-house.

There’s also another major difference between Cashier Live and Square: pricing. The company sells this combo barcode scanner/credit card swiper case for the iPhone for use with the product for $550.00. Square’s dongles, meanwhile, are handed out for free. Of course, Square doesn’t do barcode scanning, but $550 is high even for commercial barcode scanners, which are often around a couple of hundred for wireless versions. Adding in the credit card swiping, when competing with Square’s free dongle, shouldn’t shoot the cost up that much more if the company really wants be competitive with Square.

Greenhaw admits the pricing may seem high. “One thing I’d definitely say is that the Cashier app is geared towards brick and mortar business,” he explains. “Something like the Linea Pro [scanner] looks expensive when compared with a free dongle, but it’s built for high volume retail stores and businesses who are more than willing to pay for something like that.”

Greenhaw also notes that this case will be an alternative in the future. (Pricing is not set, but the plan is to keep it at $100 or less. But the case doesn’t do barcode scanning – the app will use the phone’s camera instead).

In addition, where Square provides its service sans monthly fees, Cashier Live has monthly plans that start at $20/month and go up to $75/month. In other words, the company is less focused on disrupting the credit card processing industry, and simply focused on bringing traditional processing and barcoded inventory management to mobile.

That said, the Cashier app itself has a simple interface, and ties into the inventory management system and associated barcode labeling its business customers use. It also provides a customer-tracking system where businesses can include name, birthdate and email address for use in receipts, running promotions and viewing sales history. Reporting is provided too, as are integrated services from Quickbooks and local inventory marketing via Milo, with more integrations planned for the future.

You can see the app in action in a demo video here.

Cashier Live was founded in 2009 by Tom Greenhaw and son, also Tom Greenhaw. The company launched in 2010 and rolled out its inventory app in June 2011. The founders are bootstrapping the service using money from their consulting company and haven’t taken outside funding at this time.

I usually trash any email that comes my way pitching an iPad case and/or stand. Sorry, but there are just so many of them that they really need to stand out. The Mogul, a Kickstarter project, certainly stands out and just so happens to solve a bit of a pain point, too.

See, the Mogul isn’t your average iPad stand. It’s actually meant to be used as a point-of-sale module in conjunction with Square and (yep, you guessed it) the iPad.

Ever since launching, Square has been picked up by companies of all shapes and sizes, as the add-on snaps seamlessly into anything with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. Square on the iPad tends to be the most pleasurable experience in a POS situation, except for one small problem.

No one wants to hand a $500+ piece of gadgetry back and forth to customers. It just takes one greedy customer hauling ass out of the store, iPad in hand, to learn that lesson the hard way. The Mogul solves that problem elegantly.

Made of aluminum, the Mogul holds your iPad in either portrait or landscape and easily tilts back and forth to face either the cashier or the customer. Of course, this solves the problem of having iPads stolen out of stores, but I think it extends beyond that.

We’re living in the future. These days you can walk into a Burger King and check out an electronic menu on massive LCD displays, or you can tap your phone on a register at Jack In The Box to buy some fries. Times are a’changin. That said, seeing a line of Mogul + iPad combos in a check-out section would get me excited to be in such a forward-thinking, technologically advanced store.

Unfortunately, this Kickstarter project only has a few short hours left, so if you actually want to see it in stores like I do, take the time to share this post and/or pledge here.

As we reported earlier this year, mobile payments company Square revealed that it was planning to add a number of new operational capabilities and data analysis to the register, including in-depth analytics. Tonight, Square is debuting this functionality in the form of a new iPad app. The app aims to replicate the actual experience of a register, similar to Square’s existing iPad app. But this new, free app, called Square Register, comes as a more full-fledged point of sale offering. You can access the app here.

The app has a completely new UI, and a better integration with Card Case, which is Square’s consumer-facing loyalty, payments and merchant-discovery app. For example, merchants can publish their business’ profile to the Card Case directory so customers can find them as they explore a given city. The app also includes customer notifications, so merchants know when regulars and new customers arrive at their store using Card Case.

Basically, the new app’s UI has been reconfigured so that it’s a perfect fit for brick and mortar businesses, whether they have 10 items or 10,000. Custom item arrangement allows merchants to create a mobile version of their store. The app also allows for custom permissions for employees on the register, giving merchants control and access to specific features, settings, or sensitive information in their sales reports. And with a single tap on the iPad, merchants can wirelessly print receipts or open a cash drawer to make change.

The new app and Square also features in-depth analytics, allowing merchants to segment consumer payments data and transactions. The dashboard provides a glance of basic sales information and recent transaction history, including the number of payments, subtotals, tax, tips, refunds, account deposits, etc. It also shows several interactive data sets, breaking down sales by month, days of the week, time of day, and even size of payment. Merchants can access and explore these analytics when they log into their Square account online as well.

Additionally, Square says it is now processing $4 billion in payments volume per year, which is up from $2 billion in mobile payments volume expected in October 2011.

For Square, this new app is about giving merchants tools for free that big-box retailers have been enjoying for years. The company’s existing iPad app was released last year, and the app has seen increased adoption amongst brick and mortar businesses. So this app aims to provide merchants with even more features to help make running a business easier. And Square is betting on the iPad as the go-to device for smaller merchants to manage their businesses.

2011 proved to be an eventful one for Square. The company ended the year with over 1 million merchants using the mobile payments platform to accept credit cards (there are only 8 million merchants who accept credit cards in the US). In November, Square announced it was processing $11 million in payments per day (up from $4 million a day in July). Sir Richard Branson, Kleiner Perkins, Visa, and other investors poured over $100 million over the course of the year into Square, with the company’s latest valuation pegged at $1 billion. Not to mention the unveiling of retail deals with Apple, Wal-mart, Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Target.

Already this year, Square has debuted two new retail deals—OfficeMax and select UPS Store locations. And now that Square has tackled analytics and the register for merchants, we’re expecting a more personalized experience for Card Case and perhaps international expansion as well in 2012.

Consumers may be ready for mobile wallets, but the marketplace is not. Especially if stuff like this keeps happening. Apparently, some two dozen retailers, including big names like Walmart and Target, are working together to create their own mobile payments system, according to sources at the WSJ. That means in addition to mobile wallets provided by banks, mobile operators (Isis), credit card networks, startups (like Square and Dwolla) and tech companies like Google (Google Wallet) and PayPal, consumers will be asked to wrap their heads around yet another mobile payment method: one from the retailers themselves.

That’s bad news for consumers, as an addition like this can create confusion. But it could end up being great news for more disruptive payment systems like Square.

The report says the retailers behind this new push are developing mobile payment technology on their own because they “surveyed the ecosystem” and didn’t like what they found out there. The retailers were concerned about the security of the current systems, and were disappointed by their ability to deliver offers and coupons to consumers.

Frankly, that sounds like bullshit.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been security issues with some early mobile wallet systems. Recently, for example, an Android hack was found to expose the Google Wallet PIN on demand. However, the hack only worked on rooted phones – something which Google says it doesn’t support when it comes to Google Wallet. Square, too, came under fire from competitor VeriFone last year, when it was discovered that the company’s hardware dongles weren’t encrypting data. (For what it’s worth, TechCrunch called “FUD” on that one).

But with established financial services companies like MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and PayPal moving into the mobile payments/mobile wallet space, a claim that existing systems are insecure seems a bit off the mark.

So do the retailers think they’re really more favorably positioned to build something more technically advanced? The WSJ quotes Steve Mott, who runs a consulting firm that’s working on the new payment system, as saying the retailers “have decided they need to and can build a better system.”

Better for who? The consumers? No. Better for the retailers.

It’s not about building a better system at all, actually. It’s about owning the system.

The fight here is not about becoming the best mobile wallet provider, it’s about owning the access to the customers’ data that being a mobile wallet provider allows.

It’s also about owning the additional revenue streams that mobile wallets will provide, explains Daniel Trigub, who works in Business Development at Blue Bite, a location-based mobile marketing firm, and expert in mobile marketing and payment technology.

“[The retailers] want that same piece of the payments pie,” he says of the move. “They want to own the consumer and all that data that comes with knowing who the transaction is coming from. There is ultimately a fight for user data and information…whoever owns that (POS guys, handset manufacturers, Googles of the world, credit card companies, etc.) will be very powerful,” he says.

And once the retailers own the data, they can use it to provide value-added services, like targeted coupons, to their users.

Like a digital version of the store’s own plastic credit cards, it makes sense that retailers want their own mobile-friendly counterpart. After all, there’s a reason why every single checkout cashier asks you if you’d like to save 10 percent today by opening up a store credit card account.

But if there are too many players in the mobile wallet space, it’s bad for consumers. It creates confusion. Do you use the retailers’ wallet? Visa’s? MasterCard’s Google’s? PayPal’s? The carriers‘? With too many choices, the answer could end up being “none of the above.”

This move does leave room for more disruptive, non-NFC based wallet players – companies like Square, for example – to win. A cloud-based, and completely unique technology that provides not just dongles for swiping cards, but also hands-free mobile payments that allow you to just say your name at checkout, no need to pull out your phone? Maybe replacing the swipe-to-pay experience with a tap-to-pay experience isn’t the answer, after all. Maybe it’s about blowing up the current system entirely, and starting over.

Yeah. Good luck, retailers.

As we heard last week, mobile payments platform Square pitched the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission to replace the current taxi TVs and payments technology in 50 cabs. The company says today that the pilot has been approved, and Square will be tested in up to 30 cabs in the test. AllThingsD first reported the news.

Drivers in the pilot will use a version of Square’s existing software modified with new features specifically designed for taxis. An iPhone will be plugged into the meter, from which drivers can select tolls, view current traffic patterns, receive messages, and be able to view their trip history.

In terms of the consumer experience, an iPad will be installed in the partition. On the display, passengers can view information about their trip, such as their current location, running payment total, and other details. Users can pay with their credit cards using the attached swiper, add a tip, and more.

A spokesperson for Square tells us: “Taxi drivers are among our most active and loyal users, with thousands of drivers around the country choosing Square as a more simple, cost-effective way to get paid for their work. By partnering with the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission on this pilot, we’ve built a system that meets the specific needs of NYC taxi drivers and makes the payment experience even better for their passengers.”

Currently, Verifone Media and Creative Mobile Technologies run the payments and entertainment TVs in cabs in New York. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Taxi and Limousine commission will also be soliciting proposals from Verifone and CMT on a new payments system to be integrated in taxi cabs in a similar pilot.

Obviously, this is a big win for Square, which is already being used in taxis in San Francisco and other cities. What’s interesting about the announcement is that Square will be launching a special version of the platform catered towards taxi drivers. If the company is launching a specific product for this group, perhaps Square will be customizing its mobile payments platform for other merchant categories in the future.

Photo Credit/Flickr/adrian8_8

Nearly a year ago, Square introduced us to the next evolution of its payments product—Card Case. For anyone who has used and witnessed the app being used to actually purchase something (I have), the experience is pretty awesome. Basically it’s totally seamless, and you walk away feeling that perhaps this is the future of the way people will pay for goods in stores. Except, that Square is doing this now and actually growing in usage. Back in November, Square told us that 20,000 merchants had signed up for Card Case, and four months later that number has more than doubled to over 40,000 businesses using the loyalty and mobile wallet platform.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Card Case is a mobile app (iOS and Android) that you can fill with ‘cards’ of all the merchants they visit and buy from who accept Square. These mobile cards include locations, merchant contact info, coupons, photos, menus, comments and reviews from other customers, order and purchase history and more. The app also allowed you to create a tab at a restaurant under your name without having to pull out cash or a credit card, as the app has your credit card info saved. Square Card Case also includes a merchant discovery feature, that allows you to see a directory of merchants nearby your phone’s location as well as a list of the most popular spots that Square customers are frequenting.

One of the killer features Square recently added was hands-free payments in the iOS app for Card Case. You can opt-in to a geofencing feature in the app, when you (and your phone) are within 100 meters of a Square merchant you can simple walk into the store, say your name at checkout and you are good to go with the payment. You don’t need to pull your phone out at all or open the app.

On the backend, Square’s technology detects when you are near a merchant-enabled store, and the Merchant’s Square app will open a tab for the customer and show that customer’s account, name and photo as nearby. When the customer purchases an item, they say their name, and the cashier can verify that the photo matches the customer, and then press the transact button to send the charge through. The customer will get a push notification with the amount of the charge as well. The customer can also add a tip via Card Case after the transaction in case they forget.

As I mentioned above, after using the entire experience (which so simple you almost feel like you are stealing), it’s hard not to imagine that this is the way we’ll pay for all goods in stores. The benefit for consumers and merchants is that it’s an extremely simple transaction—there’s no credit card to swipe, no receipt to sign, and no wallet to pull out. And this experience seems to be translating into meaningful revenue for some of the participating merchants using the mobile wallet. Some of the earliest businesses to accept Card Case increased revenue by nearly 25 percent as a result. And the trend is that Card Case users generally tip more using Card Case.

Square doesn’t release the number of consumers using the app but says usage is growing fast. And of course the abundance of merchants on the app only helps boost consumer downloads, as the app becomes more useful.

It’s important to note that Card Case is a separate application from Square’s payments app for the Android, iPad, and iPhone, which allows any business or individual to take credit card payments via a dongle that attaches to your phone. Square also offers Square Register, a high-powered point of sale replacement for cash registers and point of sale terminals.

But in my opinion, what makes Card Case so compelling is what it represents for the payments experience as a whole. While Square hasn’t really talked about the big picture between Card Case and the payments app, it’s clear that the company is looking to address the payments needs of both sides of the counter.

As COO Keith Rabois told us earlier this year, Square is going to add a number of new operational capabilities and data analysis to the register, including in-depth analytics on which inventory is selling well, and what they can do to help make more money.

On the consumer side, Card Case is going to get more personalized. While Square wouldn’t go into any details on how personal the mobile wallet experience will get, you can imagine a merchant being able to serve personalized deals and offers to a customer based on previous purchase history or suggest items that the customer would enjoy.

Basically, Square is tackling the entire spectrum of the payments experience, and it appears that data and personalization will be a big part of helping take this to the next level. That’s not to say that other payments companies and even merchants aren’t trying to solve this problem for merchants as well. Starbucks now allows you to pay for items via their mobile apps, which is similar to the experience of paying via Card Case. There are a number of startups such as Belly, Chatterfly, PunchTab and others trying to disrupt traditional loyalty programs for merchants and consumers. SCVGR spin-off LevelUp is also creating a payments and loyalty roll-up for businesses.

PayPal is also looking to disrupt the mobile commerce and in-store payments experience, recently debuting point of sale integrations with Home Depot (with a number of other big box retail partnerships to come). Users can basically use their PayPal account to pay for items either by using a PayPal credit card or a special pincode. Eventually, it appears there will be a mobile payments component as well.

But whereas PayPal and Starbucks are targeting large chains and stores, Square has been focused on the small business. Since the inception of the company, Square’s CEO Jack Dorsey has always been steadfast on Square’s focus on helping small businesses and individuals take credit cards and provide a seamless payments experience. Currently, While PayPal is currently setting its sights on the big retailers, Square is looking to help drive more traffic to the small, mom and pop stores in your neighborhood.

There’s definitely a place for a payments experience in the large retail world as well as the local business arena, but one thing that Square has to its advantage is that it is providing a connection between these businesses and potential customers that has never been in place before. Essentially, the company is empowering businesses with some of the technologies that big retailers have had access to for years.

According to Square’s latest stats, over 1 million merchants are actively using the mobile payments platform to accept credit cards. The 40,000 merchants who are using Card Case as well as Square’s payments service is a small ratio but it’s clear the opportunity for growth is definitely there. I can imagine the company will have to begin more marketing and advertising to get adoption on both sides of the counter.

Right now we have a glimpse into what Square could become for both merchants and consumers. When and if Square turns on features like analytics, personalization, inventory management and recommendations, we’ll see if the company can become the most comprehensive payments platform on the market.

The latest technology to be adopted by the Obama campaign—Square. The mobile payments device is now being used by the Obama for fundraising, says the company. Staff, fundraisers and others are being equipped with the card reading devices, says Square, enabling the campaign to take donations on the go via Android devices, iPhones or iPads.

“Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, running for president or local assembly, Square makes it easier than ever for candidates, organizations and volunteers to fundraise for their cause,” said a spokesperson for Square.

There’s no doubt that using a mobile payments device from Square makes fundraising much easier. With traditional forms of fundraising, if you want to donate money at a fundraising event, you often have to fill out a form and hand over a check or cash at the event. If you don’t have your checkbook or cash handy (which, many of us don’t), credit cards are the only option. You can write down your credit card number and info for fundraisers to charge at a later date, but you have to trust that the fundraiser keeps track of that information and paper.

With Square, there is both a convenience added for both the payee and fundraiser. The donation is instantly processed, and Square will send the receipt via SMS or email to the payee. Of course, political contributions and donations are a little more complicated because of the reporting requirements associated with donations. We’re told the same processing fees (2.75 percent) apply for use by non-profits and political campaigns.

Similar to the way Square created a special platform for the Salvation Army, the company has also worked with the campaign for a tailored way to take campaign donations. The special app for accepting Square payments for the Obama campaign is currently being used by staff but will be available to the public soon. We’ve embedded screenshots below.

Square has been used for campaigning and fundraising at political events for the past few years. For example, in 2010, Square was used for the state assembly campaign of Silicon Valley VC Josh Becker, and for Reshma Saujani, who ran for Congress in New York’s 14th district.

Considering that the Obama campaign raised $42 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, that’s a lot of potential money that could be flowing through Square’s platform. And the marketing exposure is also a bonus for the mobile payments startup to scale even further.

For disruptive mobile payments startup Square, 2011 was a year of massive growth on many levels. The startup ended the year with over 1 million merchants using the mobile payments platform to accept credit cards (there are only 8 million merchants who accept credit cards in the US). In November, Square announced it was processing $11 million in payments per day (up from $4 million a day in July). Sir Richard Branson, Kleiner Perkins, Visa, and other investors poured over $100 million over the course of the year into Square, with the company’s latest valuation pegged at $1 billion. And Square announced a number of new product innovations, including Card Case, a new iPad app and more. Not to mention the unveiling of  retail deals with Apple, Wal-mart, Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Target. It’s hard to imagine how Square could top such an eventful year. But according to COO Keith Rabois, 2012 will prove to be even more monumental for the mobile payments company.

Square is kicking of 2012 with two new retail deals, OfficeMax and select UPS Store locations. With these new retailer partnerships, Square is now being sold at 10,000 retail locations, up from 9,000 at the end of last year. Square’s credit card readers sell for $9.99 in stores but each purchaser can redeem a $10 credit to their bank account. According to Rabois, retail sales of Square has been a large driver of adoption. In fact, currently 80 percent of U.S. population is within 15 minutes of a Square device sold at a retail location.

Beyond expanding retail deals (there are more to come, he says); Square will also be looking to upgrade the experience of running a business, end-to-end, on the iPad. Last May, the company debuted new iPad app Square Register, a high-powered point of sale replacement for cash registers and point of sale terminals. This year, the startup will add to the capabilities of this software, enabling small businesses to grow and manage their operations off of the device.

For example, Square will be adding in-depth merchant analytics to its iPad experience, allowing merchants to access information about which inventory is selling well, and what they can do to help make more money. Rabois tells me it’s about providing data insights from transactions and interactions, and giving these small businesses the tools that big businesses and retailers can afford. As for focusing just on the iPad, he says that if there is an Android tablet that has traction, Square will invest in a comparable Android tablet offering.

Another product area where Square will be continuing to focus its efforts is on Card Case, which is a virtual card case (via a mobile app) that consumers fill with ‘cards’ of all the merchants they visit and buy from who accept Square. These mobile cards include locations, merchant contact info, coupons, order and purchase history and more. Users can also use Card Case to ‘pay with their name’ and even enable hands-free payments.

Rabois explains that Card Case has seen major traction amongst consumers, and is on the same growth trajectory (in terms of usage and engagement) as Square was when it first launched to the public in 2009. One area where the startup will be innovating is personalization, and helping merchants to provide a more individual, personalized experience based on interactions to each customer.

As for transaction volumes, Rabois declined to give us any exact numbers but did say that transactions have hit way north of $11 million per day on a number of days in the past few months.

Armed with over $100 million in new funding, Square is also preparing for international expansion within the year, which was revealed at the time of Branson’s investment.

With the major product innovations set to take place this year, Rabois tells me that Square is also looking to triple its employee count in 2012. Currently, Square has a staff of 200 employees, up from around 40 at the same time in 2011. Most of the hiring will be of engineers, specializing in a variety of areas including iOS, Android, Ruby, back-end infrastructure and more.

In the end, Square’s 2012 goals are still aligned to the startup’s core principle: to help small businesses everywhere accept credit cards. Rabois says that there are still 26 million businesses in the U.S. that don’t accept credit cards, and he expects to convert a “huge fraction of them” this year. Stay tuned.

Update: Tickets are now sold out. Be sure to keep your eye out for ticket giveaways and for when we release our next batch of tickets.

The nominations have been tabulated and the votes are in. Over 300,000 nominations were calculated across 20 categories. Along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat, we are very proud to announce the finalists for 2011′s best in technology. Voting begins now.

For 2011, we’ve added some new categories. Best Location App, Best Cloud Services and Biggest Social Impact join the Crunchies ranks this year. You’ll also find Best Social App, the NYC-dominated category of Best Shopping App, Best New Startup and the year’s best VC’s and Angel Investors. Newcomers like TaskRabbit’s Leah Busque and Keith Rabois for his angel investments (Airbnb, LinkedIn, Yammer, Path, YouTube) made the list of finalists, as well as industry favorites such as Marc Andreessen, Jack Dorsey, Mark Pincus and Ron Conway.

There are some pretty good match-ups this year. Google+ is up against Facebook Timeline for Best Social App, along with the New New Twitter, Instagram, and Path 2.0). The Kindle Fire is competing with the iPad 2 for Best New Device. And Pinterest, Turntable.fm, Nest, Fab, and Codecademy are all vying for Best New Startup (even though two of those were complete pivots). LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman is up for Angel of the Year. His seed investment in Zynga is worth 160 times what he paid for it. But AngelList founders Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi are also finalists in the category for helping to democratize angel investing, along with Conway, Rabois, Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, and Kevin Rose (who has a killer portfolio that includes Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga, and Square). Who will win?

Everyone is eligible and encouraged to vote. The rules state that you may vote once per day, per award category, until voting closes on Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:59pm PST. There are 20 award categories open for voting, recognizing the top accomplishments across a variety of fields and roles. If you are one of the finalists, create a badge and get your community excited about this honor and get them to vote for you. Winners will be announced on January 31, live at the Crunchies.

In addition to today’s announcement of the Finalists, we are happy to release our next batch of tickets through Eventbrite. The release begins now, so act fast and get them while you can.

Here are your Finalists:

Best Technology Achievement (2010 winner: Google Self Driving Cars)
Lytro (Related posts)
NFC (Related posts)
OnLive (Related posts)
Siri (Related posts)
Tesla Flat Pack Battery (Related posts)

Best Social Application (2010 winner: DailyBooth)
Facebook Timeline (Related posts)
Instagram (Related posts)
Google+ (Related posts)
The New New Twitter (Related posts)
Path 2.0 (Related posts)

Best Shopping Application (2010 winner: Groupon)
Birchbox (Related posts)
Fab (Related posts)
Gilt Groupe (Related posts)
Lot18 (Related posts)
Warby Parker (Related posts)

Best Mobile Application (2010 winner: Google Mobile Maps for Android)
Evernote (Related posts)
Flipboard (Related posts)
Pandora (Related posts)
Spotify (Related posts)
Square (Related posts)
TaskRabbit (Related posts)

Best Location Application (New category for 2011)
Airbnb (Related posts)
Foursquare (Related posts)
Grindr (Related posts)
RunKeeper (Related posts)
Uber (Related posts)

Best Tablet Application (2010 winner: Flipboard)
djay (Related posts)
Eventbrite At the Door (Related posts)
Fotopedia (Related posts)
GarageBand (Related posts)
Netflix (Related posts)
StumbleUpon (Related posts)

Best Design (2010 winner: gogobot)
Gojee (Related posts)
Orchestra (Related posts)
Path 2.0 (Related posts)
Pinterest (Related posts)
Quora (Related posts)

Best Bootstrapped Startup (2010 winner: addmired)
Github (Related posts)
Imgur (Related posts)
Instapaper (Related posts)
Onesheet (Related posts)
Tap Tap Tap (Camera+) (Related posts)

Best Cloud Service (New category for 2011)
Asana (Related posts)
Box (Related posts)
CloudFlare (Related posts)
Dropbox (Related posts)
Okta (Related posts)
Twilio (Related posts)

Best International Startup (2010 winner: Viki)
Badoo (Related posts)
Klarna (Related posts)
Peixe Urbano (Related posts)
Rovio (Related posts)
SoundCloud (Related posts)
Wonga (Related posts)

Best Clean Tech Startup (2010 winner: SolarCity)
Alta Energy (Related posts)
Array Power (Related posts)
EcoATM (Related posts)
EcoMotors (Related posts)
Hara (Related posts)

Best New Device (2010 winner: iPad)
Galaxy Nexus (Related posts)
iPad 2 (Related posts)
iPhone 4S (Related posts)
Kindle Fire (Related posts)
Nest (Related posts)

Best Time Sink (2010 winner: Cityville)
Modern Warfare 3 (Related posts)
Quora (Related posts)
Skyrim (Related posts)
Turntable.fm (Related posts)
Words With Friends (Related posts)

Biggest Social Impact (New category for 2011)
Charity: Water (Related posts)
Khan Academy (Related posts)
Kickstarter (Related posts)
Practice Fusion (Related posts)
Twitter (Related posts)

Angel of the Year (2010 winner: Paul Graham)
Ron Conway (Related posts)
Paul Graham (Related posts)
Reid Hoffman (Related posts)
Keith Rabois (Related posts)
Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi (AngelList) (Related posts for Naval) (Related posts for Babak)
Kevin Rose (Related posts)

VC of the Year (2010 winner: Yuri Milner)
Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz (Related posts for Marc) (Related posts for Ben)
Matt Cohler (Related posts)
Vinod Khosla (Related posts)
Aileen Lee (Related posts)
Yuri Milner (Related posts)
David Sze (Related posts)

Founder of the Year (2010 winner: Mark Pincus)
Leah Busque (Task Rabbit) (Related posts)
Brian Chesky (Airbnb) (Related posts)
Jack Dorsey (Square, Twitter) (Related posts)
Susan Feldman & Ali Pincus (One Kings Lane) (Related posts for Susan) (Related posts for Ali)
Drew Houston (Dropbox) (Related posts)

CEO of the Year (2010 winner: Andrew Mason)
Dick Costolo (Twitter) (Related posts)
Daniel Ek (Spotify) (Related posts)
Phil Libin (Evernote) (Related posts)
Mark Pincus (Zynga) (Related posts)
Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn) (Related posts)

Best New Startup of 2011 (2010 winner: Quora)
Codecademy (Related posts)
Fab (Related posts)
Nest (Related posts)
Pinterest (Related posts)
Turntable.fm (Related posts)

Best Overall Startup of 2011 (2010 winner: Twitter)
Dropbox (Related posts)
Instagram (Related posts)
Gilt Groupe (Related posts)
Spotify (Related posts)
Square (Related posts)
Tumblr (Related posts)

5th Annual Crunchies Awards
Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA

7:30pm – midnight – Awards Ceremony and After Party
A night of celebration with festive attire.

Our sponsors help make the Crunchies happen, if you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities during the ceremony or after-party, please contact Jeanne Logozzo at jeanne@techcrunch.com.

For press credentials, please fill out this request form and confirmations will be sent separately via email.