TECHCRUNCH 2030

KISSmetrics: A Conversion Funnel Tool That Gives Your Site A Memory

2011-09-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Analytics is a crowded space, with plenty of services looking to help you turn your visitors into engaged, paid customers. KissMetrics is the latest to join the fray, and it’s offering a solution that’s both straightforward and powerful. As it comes out of stealth, the company is also revealing its funding: in 2008 it closed a $1 million seed round led by True Ventures, and in mid-2009 it closed a $3 million round led by Polaris Ventures. The company also has investments from SoftTechVC, Felicis Ventures, and Angels including Dave McClure, Mark Goines, Shervin Pishevar, Bobby Yazdani, and Nils Johnson.

At this point, KissMetrics is built around one type of analysis: the conversion funnel, which shows you how many users are dropping off during your signup flows (and can hopefully help you figure out why). You can customize these graphs by tracking different variables, but Cofounder Hiten Shah says that you won’t find a dizzying array of other options. The goal, he says, was to get this one key tool to work very well before branching out (though other tools will follow).

KissMetrics started off around two years ago as an analytics service for Facebook applications, but shifted to its broader current model after noticing how many companies were building their analytics tools in-house. That story may sound familiar: the founders of Mixpanel, another analytics company, drew similar inspiration from their time at Slide.

So how does KissMetrics differ from Mixpanel and the other analytics services that are already out there? Shah says that other services generally track clicks and events, but that they don’t trackusers. KissMetrics, on the other hand, can be used to track the activity of a user even before they’ve even joined your site — it essentially builds an anonymous history for each user, and then associates that history with their username once they create an account. For example, if you were to visit a site five times without converting, but then visited a sixth time and did convert, the site’s owners can use KissMetrics to look back at the history of the first five visits to try to identify where they went wrong.

While this technology could potentially be used for things like cross-site advertising, Shah says KissMetricsonly creates these user histories on a per-site basis (he explains that this minimizes privacy issues). In the future, he says that KissMetrics products will evolve toward helping optimize marketing and customer acquisition.

The service is free for the first thirty days, then offers tiered monthly pricing plans based on how many events you’ll be tracking. These plans begin at $149 a month and go up to $699, with custom plans for especially large sites.

KissMetrics’ advisors include Eric Ries, Sean Ellis, Jeff Veen, Jeff Hammerbacher, and Ed Baker (CEO of Friend.ly), many of whom have extensive experience in analytics.

Share Buttons? Ha. Facebook Just Schooled The Internet. Again.

2011-09-23T19:12:00.000-07:00

After last year’s f8 keynote, my initial thought was pretty straightforward: I Think Facebook Just Seized Control Of The Internet. Between the Like Button, the Open Graph, and the Open Graph API, I felt like we were shifting from Google being the fabric of the web, to Facebook taking over. A few days later, a now unpaid blogger declared it: The Age of Facebook.

Both of these declarations pissed a lot of people off.

Facebook is the new AOL! Walled garden! The end of open! Blah. Blah. Blah. While everyone else has been busy whining — including plenty of competitors — Facebook has been kicking ass and taking names. And today is proof of that.

For the past year, Facebook has been working on the beautiful re-imagining of the Profile, which they call “Timeline“. I just got it enabled on my account. Going back in time and seeing the past several years of my life displayed in this way is nothing short of profound. Facebook has used software to make something meaningful. Something emotionally powerful.

Because of this impact, some people will undoubtedly hate it. But more will love it. It’s incredible: Facebook has become a tool that’s a reflection of who we are. Just in case it wasn’t painfully obvious already, they’re far more than just another web startup that will flame out in a few years. They are the real deal.

And they just made their competition look rather foolish.

All we’ve heard about in the blogosphere the past few months is how Google+ could take down Facebook. How Google actually did something halfway decent in the social space — watch out Facebook! And look — now Facebook is even copying them!

Please.

I have no doubt that some of Facebook’s little moves over the past few months have been in reaction to Google+. But focusing on that is silly. Those are tiny features compared to what Facebook just unveiled today. They weren’t even worthy of being on stage at f8.

While Google was busy rushing to get a social network that could compete with Facebook out the door, Facebook was thinking about the next phase of social networking. They were building the next Facebook! Google+ does compete with Facebook — the old Facebook. It does not compete with what Facebook launched today.

In that regard, Facebook pulled an Apple. Apple releases something, and everyone in their space rushes to do the same thing. But they never realize that it’s a losing position. They’re skating to where the puck has been. Apple skates to where the puck is going to be. Facebook is skating to where the puck is going to be.

Also reminiscent of Apple: when Facebook unveiled the Like button last year, they were hardly the first to do a button. But they were the first to do a button in the correct way. One click. Done. Suddenly, everyone needed this one-click button.

But while all the competitors were busy making that button, Facebook was busy making the button obsolete. Today’s Open Graph changes represent a world where the button isn’t needed. Sure, it will continue to exist for certain types of content. But it will be more like an on/off switch.

With the new Open Graph, you’re sharing stuff as you do it. You don’t have to think about it. You’re listening to music on Spotify and it’s being shared with your friends automatically in the Facebook Ticker. The only button you hit is “play”.

Obviously, that’s not ideal for all content. But for some of the best content, it’s beyond ideal. The idea of hitting a share button to push your favorite song to Facebook is stupid. Enjoy the music, don’t worry about having to remember to share it. That’s how this should work.

There’s one massive problem in the social space: everyone is competing for the same user time. But most services compete by piling on features that erode that time even quicker. They’re offering up services that if I use, it means I’ll have even less time to actually enjoy life. That’s not a sustainable model. Being “social” online has become far too much work.

Facebook has clearly been thinking about this problem. And now they have a way to tap the power of social without thinking about it. That’s the future of the space. It’s not about needing a share button. It’s about not needing a share button.

How To Enable Facebook Timeline Right This Second

2011-09-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

This morning Facebook announced Timeline, a crazy (and kind of creepy) omnibus look at everything that has ever happened in your Facebook lifespan. It’s like a story book of your life — or at least the online, documented parts.

Facebook said that Timeline would be on the way for everyone sometime in the coming weeks… which is great and all, for everyone else. You’re the type of person who reads TechCrunch, and are thus likely the type of person who likes their new and shiny things right now.

That’s okay. We can make it happen.

Fortunately, enabling Timeline a bit early isn’t too difficult — but it’s not at all straight forward, either.

You see, Facebook is enabling Timeline early for open graph developers. You, too, can be an open graph developer — even if you’re just looking to dabble.

A few things to note:
- You probably don’t want to do this unless you’re actually a developer. Expect bugs.
- Only you will see your timeline at first (unless you decide otherwise), but it will automatically go public after a few days. My timeline was automatically hard-set to go public on September 29th.
- It seems that if you login into Facebook on another machine, Timeline gets disabled automatically on all of your machines. With that said, it seems you can get back to your timeline (but ONLY after following the steps below) by navigating to http://www.facebook.com/YOURUSERNAMEHERE?sk=timeline
- You’ll need to have a “verified” account for one of the steps, which means you need a credit card or phone number attached to the account.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Log into Facebook

2. Enable developer mode, if you haven’t already. To do this, type “developer” into the Facebook search box, click the first result (it should be an app made by Facebook with a few hundred thousand users), and add the app.

3. Jump into the developer app (if Facebook doesn’t put you there automatically, it should be in your left-hand tool bar)

4. Create a new app (don’t worry — you wont actually be submitting this for anyone else to see/use). Give your shiny new app any display name and namespace you see fit. Read through and agree to the Platform Privacy agreement. This is the step you need to be verified for.

5. Ensure you’re in your new app’s main settings screen. You should see your app’s name near the top of the page

6. Look for the “Open Graph” header, and click the “Get Started using open graph” link.

Create a test action for your app, like “read” a “book”, or “eat” a “sandwich”

7. This should drop you into an action type configuration page. Change a few of the default settings (I changed the past tense of “read” to “redd” — again, only you can see this unless you try and submit your application to the public directory), and click through all three pages of settings

8. Wait 2-3 minutes

9. Go back to your Facebook homescreen. An invite to try Timeline should be waiting at the top of the page

And you’re done! We’ve seen this work quite a few times now, so it should work without a hitch for just about anyone.

Imagine K12′s 2011 Startup Class Aims To Invigorate Education With Technology

2011-09-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite bits from Disrupt SF was the set of rapid-fire presentations from Imagine K12, an incubator for education-related startups. We heard in June that some 200 applicants had been narrowed down to 10 companies, and those 10 made brief presentations in front of the audience at Disrupt. We couldn’t write them up at the time, so here is a belated rundown of these interesting new companies and services.

I urge our readers to watch the video or at least skim our summaries and evaluations. Startups too seldom directly address social issues like this, and one of these services might be something that can really benefit you or your kids.

I’ll go through these in the order they gave presentations, and I’ll give timecodes for each so you can skip directly to them if you like.

EXPAND TRANSCRIPT

Goalbook

(4:33) The disconnect between group-based teaching and individual learning is addressed by Goalbook, which hopes to produce for every student a single, shared learning plan. The alternative, parent-teacher conferences and counselor meetings, is totally out of date, and simple social networking tools can improve the situation significantly, in their opinion. Instead of a file in a cabinet somewhere and a few notes jotted on attendance sheets or classwork, every student is a node in a network of educators, administrators, and parents. A database of goals, strategies, and so on will be used to create a recommendation engine for helping students. They’re launching in a number of Bay Area districts and private schools.

The question for me is whether teachers will in fact have the time or inclination to do much more than rubber stamp this profile when homework is or isn’t put in, when they do or don’t attend, and so on. Rich data is a good thing, but someone has to create it, and teachers are already hard up for time.

Formative Learning

(7:45) Training of teachers, while an expensive and highly necessary process, is stuck in the past, with paper-based tracking and feedback, and irregular goals and recommendations. Formative learning hopes to put all this teacher training in a single location, where everything is done in a universally-understood way and that data is used to recommend courses, videos, and so on to improve teaching.

Naturally this is only one part of the training process, and the most important bit is still attracting and retaining motivated teachers. And no matter how right-on your recommendations are for this or that skill, hands-on learning and a supportive, happy staff is going to be more key. Of course, that’s a whole other problem.

Remind101

(11:03) There are a number of reasons why the means of communication between teacher, student, and parent are limited. There are questions of authority, privilege, and so on. Yet effective and timely communication is an important part of education, and something that’s far more likely to be found in small class sizes and private schools. Remind101 wants to provide a safe and effective tool for this using a form of communication kids seem to prefer over face-to-face interaction anyway: text messages. The founder describes it as “Twitter for teachers,” but with careful controls to make it secure and private. Instead of having teachers use personal cell phone numbers and so on, Remind101 acts as an middle man between teachers, their students, and the parents of those students.

I honestly can’t think of any drawbacks to this. It’s safe, it’s simple, and it uses existing infrastructure. It can be integrated with school databases in a day and engagement level is up to the participants. We did a follow-up interview with Remind101′s founder here.

TutorCloud

(13:30) Crowdsourcing tutoring, who’d have thunk? TutorCloud thinks that they’re going to be the ones who make the $8 billion tutoring market a little more modern and accessible. Their service works as a marketplace for college students hoping to shop themselves out as tutors to younger kids or peers who can’t quite get the hang of organic chemistry. They use the Facebook Connect API to make personality matches as well as subject and pricing. All the communication happens within the system so personal information remains secure, and more responsive tutors get higher rankings. The actual tutoring occurs via video chat with a shared whiteboard space.

The marketplace for tutors sounds fine, but to be honest, I don’t think video-based tutoring is going to engage enough to make people want it over a real-life person, the advantages of which are many. I’m afraid parents would rather pay for a tutor’s gas or drive their kid to the library for a meetup. Perhaps as online collaboration tools become richer and more accepted this will seem more of a viable option.

BrainNook

(17:05) Kids these days don’t play Carmen Sandiego or Mavis Beacon, and that’s a tragedy, but they do like to play games online. Why shouldn’t these games be interesting, social, competitive, and educational? BrainNook is putting together a lot of new games and experiences aimed at elementary-level kids that hopes to be engaging while providing some standard lessons in arithmetic, spelling, and so on. The information from these games would be available to kids’ parents and teachers.

I have to admit here that I’m a bit disconnected from the world of online kids’ games. But BrainNook sounds like a great thing to have available to teachers for extra credit. Miss a homework assignment? Get to level 3 in the math game. Home sick? Sign in and talk to your friends in the virtual classroom. Whether they can actually make the games fun is a question yet to be answered, however. Kids are fickle creatures. What BrainNook needs is personality.

Eduvant

(20:09) Schools collect a ton of data just in order to be compliant with various laws and regulations: keep this many years of counselor records, teacher evaluations, etc. on file in case they need to be checked. But all these years of data, from which something meaningful might be gleaned or trends detected, are sitting in drawers or stuck in separate databases. Few schools really organize this information well or provide access to people like teachers and administrators. Eduvant integrates all this data into a single platform. You can put all kinds of data and analytics in one place with quick, browser-based access. There are tools for creating new data as well — referrals for counseling and such.

Again, my issue is that producing this data may be more work that teachers and others in the system can’t handle. The principal dashboard they showed would be handy, but how live is it? Who is generating that data? Who’s scanning in paper reports? Expecting a quick changeover to this online system is optimistic in my opinion, as useful as it could be. But whether it’s Eduvant or one of its descendants, I definitely see systems like this in place a few years from now when these hurdles have been cleared.

ClassConnect

(24:20) There are a number of services available to teachers for various in-class tasks like putting together quizzes, distributing work and resources, and receiving homework online. Unfortunately, they lack connectivity, and one useful tool may not communicate to another, or it may require extra work on the part of the teacher. ClassConnect wants to offer a one-size-fits-all package that lets teachers create lectures, test and assess students, and manage class content. They also made a rich lecture presentation tool that lets students interact with the content.

The trouble here is that it requires a certain level of savvy on the part of students as well as teachers. Students who aren’t motivated will take the path of least resistance, and that will likely be the old tools: paper, pencil, and excuses. And underprivileged kids and districts are going to be left out of this, so it’s going to be hard to make it a standard tool. That said, the easy creation and sharing of class data could shave precious minutes off teachers’ schedules and leave more time for the all-important in-person interactions.

Educreations

(27:47) The creation and distribution of rich educational media is a space Educreations feels is going to blow up, but the tools required to effectively make content are disconnected and not aimed at beginners. They’ve created a simple online service where you can draw, type, and bring in external content that gets automatically encoded and shared in a single place. It’s like an Open Khan Academy.

I have no doubt of the company’s ability to deliver what they’re describing, but is it really that valuable? This form of visual aid (essentially a whiteboard recording) may or may not be a good match for the content teachers are presenting. I feel like they’re hitching their wagon to the nearest star, and not looking forward far enough. Also, writing with a mouse sucks.

11 Learning

(30:55) The $13 billion textbook industry is ripe for disruption, says 11 Learning’s founder. The existing system of working for perhaps years on a single large volume is inefficient and expensive. They’ve put together a platform on which authors can create and edit textbooks and publish them for minimal cost.

If I’m not mistaken, this whole startup is essentially valuing the contributions of authors and professors at zero. A few professors may be okay with donating some of their time to editing a textbook, but are the 40 or 50 overworked profs, copy editors, and artists really going to continue giving away their work with the promise of some rev share later on? 11 Learning’s $5000 “fixed cost” figure is meaningless. Producing high-quality content is time-consuming and expensive because the people who create that content value their time. Furthermore, many subjects simply do not lend themselves to “crowdsourced” editing and content creation. And the way teaching is moving, centralizing content is on its way out anyway. This is like making improvements to steam engine production lines when the automobile is about to make its debut.

ClassDojo

(33:55) Managing student behavior is a major problem in our school systems, wasting tons of class time and monopolizing the attention of new teachers in particular. In ClassDojo, students in classes are publicly awarded points and badges via a web or smartphone app, and that data (+1 for answering, -1 for passing notes) is automatically tracked and shared with parents.

From the moment this guy said “we’re making software that fixes bad behavior in class,” I was skeptical. And when he said it “improves behavior in real time,” my alarms went off. This is just gold star stickers in a web app. It’s a huge overpromise that relies on way too many assumptions and ignores the realities of bad behavior. If students behave poorly because they don’t respect the teacher or value their time in school, that’s not something that will be fixed by a simplistic virtual point system — it will be either ignored or resented by the majority of students. Real behavior problems and real behavior management require time and work. There’s no way around that, especially not with something as flimsy as this.

The test for many of these startups is whether they last beyond the trial phase, which all of them are clearly in. The big numbers they’re seeing are like the initial bump in any new service. You hear about it (in this case Imagine K12 certainly pitched the local districts), you give it a try, and then, organically, you either continue or stop using it.

Some I can see truly picking up. Remind101, Eduvant, and ClassConnect I give a good chance of being picked up, if at first only for a fraction of what they do. I think some of these may be forced to fold or pivot when confronted with non-theoretical use scenarios. And of course every teacher and school is different, and has different requirements, so support is going to be a full-time job.

Also, and I recognize this is an industry-wide problem with young startups, but it would help to have a little more proving time under their belts. Sure, a few weeks or months in however many districts is good, but what these guys really need is to pick two or three very different classrooms and work very closely with them for an entire school year, or failing that, at least half of one. What they need isn’t skyrocketing user counts, which often fall under the cooked numbers category, but real-life case studies. No principal is going to care that you have 10,000 classrooms being tracked by your tools. They will, however, care when you tell them about one classroom that dramatically improved engagement, or showed a 50% increase in parent involvement, or what have you. Too many of these startups are under the impression that a burst of momentum in the beginning means their service is effective. Not true. The service is effective if it is effective, and education isn’t a sprint, it’s a long haul.

Even though I don’t agree with the ideas or execution of all the companies in this first “class” of Imagine K12 companies, I’m all admiration at the fact that they are being attempted at all. Too much of startup culture is focused on bleeding-edge consumption, totally ignoring areas where even minimal applications of the tech we take for granted could improve conditions significantly in education, social services, and so on. I look forward to the next generation of Imagine K12 startups

KISSmetrics Helps You Hone In On Stats That Actually Matter With Cohort Reports

2011-09-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

Kissmetrics, an analytics startup that helps you keep tabs on how your users are using your website, is adding a new tool to its suite of products today: Cohort Analysis.

Cohorts, for those that aren’t familiar with them, are groups of users who sign up during a given time period (say, everyone who signed up between January 1 and 7, 2011). And analyzing them can offer some valuable insight into how people are using (or have stopped using) your service. Kissmetrics cofounder Neil Patel explains that the vanity metrics we often see being discussed in the press, like total user count, can be misleading. For example, your site might have growing overall usage each month, but that growth may be fueled entirely by a rise in new signups — who could mask the fact that your older users are fading away.

That’s where cohort reports come in handy: they’ll let you break your overall user base into different groups, then see how each of those groups use the service during, say, the following six months. This can be helpful both to gauge the lifetime value of users, and to see how much of an impact new features are having on each group of users. Kissmetrics will also let you further break your users out into cohorts based on how they were referred to your site.

Patel acknowledges that there are other services that have set out to offer Cohort Reports as well, including Mixpanel and RJMetrics, but says that their products, at least as far as cohorts are concerned, give users less flexibility (he also believes Kissmetrics is easier to use). Patel says one key feature offered by Kissmetrics that the others don’t have is the ability to ‘zoom in’ on each cohort down to the individual user level.

Kissmetrics is available for free for a 30 day free trial, with premium plans available after that beginning at $29/month (prices increase depending on the size of your size and how many datapoints you’re tracking).

If you’re interested in learning more about cohorts, Evernote CEO Phil Libin has previously spoken in detail about how his company uses this kind of data.

Microsoft solves Reach disc issues with Games on Demand

2011-09-23T18:56:00.001-07:00

Did you get one of Microsoft's special copies of Halo: Reach? You know, the ones that were sent out to test their recent security update allowing developers more space on Xbox 360 game discs. You were probably super-stoked.

Your stoke-age was halted this week though, in all likelihood, as the most recent Reach title update prevented players using one of those magic free discs to get online – and from enjoying the beta playlists designed to ease players into Halo CE Anniversary's multiplayer tweaks. Microsoft has previously mentioned that a simple title update probably wouldn't get the job done. So today, they've started giving away Games on Demand copies of the game to affected users.Microsoft has been reaching out to participants of the preview program from earlier this year with the following email:

"Earlier this year, you participated in the Xbox LIVE Public Preview program and were provided a copy of Halo: Reach as part of your participation. Unfortunately, this Halo: Reach "preview disc" cannot be updated with a conventional Title Update, causing the game to be unplayable after the recent Halo: Reach Title Update on September 21, 2011. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

To get you back online with Halo: Reach, below is a code for the Games on Demand version of the game. Once the code is redeemed and your copy of Halo: Reach is downloaded, the game will work as usual, including the features added by the title update. All of your Halo Reach game saves will work normally as well. You may then discard the disc from the Public Preview program.

Please note that this Games on Demand version of Halo: Reach will require you to have some storage on your Xbox 360 – a hard drive or USB of at least 6.6 gigabytes. "

Amazon To Hold Press Conference on 9/28, New Tablet Incoming?

2011-09-23T18:52:00.000-07:00

Word of an Amazon press conference slated for September 28 at 10 AM is making the rounds. Could the fabled Amazon tablet make its first appearance?

If so, then the invitation does a great job of playing it cool. Aside from a mention of the time and date, it offers little else to chew on. That hasn’t stopped speculation from running wild, and the potential unveiling of their new tablet is on everyone’s mind.

Let’s let cooler heads prevail for a moment: while likely big, it may not necessarily be their much-vaunted Android tablet. The press conference could be used to announce any number of things, from a new version of the Kindle to a national rollout of their 7-11 delivery lockers.

That said, the announcement of a tablet couldn’t come at more perfect time for Amazon: news of Barnes and Noble’s new complement of Nook Color tablets has just begun to surface, and their 3rd generation Kindles can’t stack up to shiny new hardware when the holiday season rolls around. Recent reports from Gartner also indicate that if uncontested, the iPad will rule the tablet roost for the next few years. The timing and the landscape seem ready for a tablet contender with Amazon’s full weight thrown behind it.

When our own MG Siegler got a chance to play with the tablet, he discovered a few tantalizing tidbits. A 7-inch WiFi model is slated to sell for $250, and it’s going to run a very-Amazon centric fork of Android. It looks to be a compelling package of price and functionality, and hopefully we’ll catch our first official glimpse of it come the 28th.

eBay To Announce Something Big With Facebook In Two Weeks

2011-09-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

At 500 Startups’ Smash Summit in New York today, Robert Scoblerevealed that PayPal is launching something big with Facebook in two weeks, and that it would be a more expansive partnership than the existing PayPal-Facebook integrations. This announcement is coming at eBay and PayPal’s X.commerce Innovate conference in two weeks, we’ve confirmed with the payments giant, and Katie Burke Mitic, who leads Platform Marketing for Facebook will be making an announcement. We hear the announcement will be relate of PayPal parent company eBay Inc.’s new developer platform X.commerce.

Last year, PayPal announced its new micropayments product, which Facebook integrated. In early 2010, Facebook announced that you could use PayPal to purchase Credits.

So what could the new deal or integration be? A likely possibility is a Facebook partnership on thenew X.Commerce platform, which is a division of eBay, Inc. and is expected to bring together elements from eBay, PayPal, Magento and GSI Commerce. According to PayPal, X.commerce will feature a “fabric” that stitches the platform together to create new experiences for retailers and their customers. A number of partners will be announced (already Adobe and Kenshoo have been revealed as partners), so Facebook could be part of this group.

eBay and PayPal wouldn’t reveal exact details of the integration but did give us this comment from Naveed Anwar, head of X.commerce Community: “We’ve been talking for a while about how the four megatrends of mobile, social, local and digital will change commerce. Yesterday at f8, Facebook made some great announcements that will change social networking. When social and commerce join together great things will be possible and developers will be able to monetize these new developments very quickly.”

PayPal could also announce a deal similar to the one American Express formed with Facebook,which links your credit card account with Facebook to offer users special exclusive deals. If you buy the deal item with your AmEx card, you will be credited the deal amount. The deals you see are influenced by what you and your friends “like” on the Web using the Facebook like button. PayPalalready offers deals but a deeper integration with the social network would help close the redemption loop.

With more retailers flocking to Facebook, and as more money is passing through the network via games, apps and others experiences, there is a huge potential for many integrations with online payments giant PayPal. Another announcement we can expect PayPal to make soon—a new payments platform for merchants and in-store payments integrations with retailers.

TechCrunch readers can receive $200 off the registration price for X.commerce Innovate Developers Conference 2011 if they register by Friday, September 30, 2011. You can register here using the code INN2011TC.

TechCrunch 2030

2011-09-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

With Sequoia’s Doug Leone talking up Color Labs’ next pivot at TechCrunch Disrupt, and in-the-wild signs of a Color Labs Facebook app called Blue already beginning to appear, it seems like many are rapt in anticipation of what the future holds for the storied photo-sharing app.

Well, according to one Harvard student tipster, the company has been gearing up for a product launch at f8 by exclusively targeting Harvard students, with Color Product Manager Andre Charoo sending out the following email draft to a number of computer science-related student groups at the elite university — meant for distribution when the new app goes live on Thursday.

Subject: New Harvard exclusive app launched w/ Zuckerberg
In case Harvard isn’t exclusive enough for us, a new app launched with Facebook today is available exclusively for only Harvard students to download until Friday at midnight.
The app lets Facebook friends see what you see live through your phone.
Follow this link from your phone’s browser (for iPhone and Android) — [INSERT LINK].

It’s unclear from the email whether whatever that [INSERT LINK] link point to will be a new version of Color’s current app or a new app entirely built by Color Labs (judging by what we’ve being seeing regarding Blue, I would guess the latter). It is also unclear how exactly the app will limit its usership to Harvard students until Friday.

A description of the app also making the rounds on Harvard email lists is equally vague:

“As a brief description of the new app — Color lets friends see what you see live through your phone. The Color app lets you post to Facebook, and allow friends to virtually visit you on Facebook or with the app on their phone (available on iPhone and Android). When friends request a visit, you can host them through a live broadcast from your phone. “

I, for one, am finding it hard to conceive of what a “virtual visit” just might be, but if our tipster is correct, it would seem like Color is taking its cues from Mark Zuckerberg’s original Facebook launch strategy — trying to revive its flagging product by using Harvard as a marketing Petri dish.

Leak, Revamp, Repeat: How The HTC Rhyme Almost Went Unisex

2011-09-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

A while back, rumors surfaced about a new Android smartphone built by HTC. Rumors and leaks happen with just about every phone, but for this particular Android handset, we were hearing quite a lot about it.

Eventually specs trickled out, but before that all we knew was that it was a phone targeted to women: The HTC Bliss (now known as theRhyme).

Leak:

We heard it would launch in a “calming” sea foam green, and come with an LED-powered dangling charm to let ladies know if the phone in their purse was getting calls. We even heard thatwomen-centric dieting and shopping apps would come along for the ride.

This was unsettling.

Joanna Stern of TIMN felt the same way I did, writing:

To be honest, we’ve had a really hard time believing some of this information — not because there’s anything here that’s technically impossible or because we didn’t trust our source, but because we simply can’t imagine a company creating a phone specifically for American women in this day and age (it reminds us of the Petticoat 5 spoof).

Even our own Sarah Perez tagged her own thoughts to the end of her leak post:

What bothers me about the idea of a “girl’s” Android phone is that somehow my gender has different needs and expectations than their male counterparts do when it comes to smartphones. Colored devices and cell phone charms are not necessarily “womanly” things – they may appeal to a younger demographic, or to those who concern themselves with appearances, perhaps. But that doesn’t mean only women.

I second, +1, and “Like” all that was said. And what’s worse (that these ladies neglected to touch on) is that the phone itself wasn’t* all that great. By no means was it a “bad” phone, but the specs we heard about were average and likely to be outdated a few months later. With a single-core 1GHz processor and a 3.7-inch WVGA touchscreen, Sense 3.5 can’t really make up for what is very clearly a mid-range Android device.

So why target something mediocre towards women? Because we don’t know what kind of processors we should want? Because we don’t enjoy beautiful, large touchscreens? I was at a loss.

*I continue to use the past tense in this section as I’m referring to rumors, and what we knew then.

Revamp:

No doubt whatsoever, HTC saw the reaction. Many tech bloggers are male, so of course it wasn’t as fiercely disputed by the boys as it was by us woman-folk, but the reaction seemed pretty collective and HTC heard what was being said, which was: “Are you guys really doing this?”

As the launch announcement drew closer and closer, specs, press shots, and even pictures of the accessories were leaked, and it looked like not much had changed from the info in the original rumors. The only new information we got on the Bliss was an invitation to the launch event (that happened this morning), in which HTC didn’t actually disclose the product they were announcing.

But from the way that things were worded here in New York, this phone isn’t just for women. HTC was super serious about not using any female-centric words or pronouns once during the entire thing. In fact, they made a push to say that this phone was for “everyone.”

I even asked an HTC rep at the event why we had heard no mention of women during the announcement. He robotically replied that this phone is for “everyone,” and that the Rhyme is more about following you through your daily life than being catered to a specific gender.

Words vs. actions is an interesting thing, isn’t it?

To be quite honest, not much has changed from what we had thought, save for a couple last minute switcharoos. The Bliss is now the Rhyme, which I guess has a bit of a more masculine feel to it than Bliss does, but not by much. Then there’s the “calming” sea foam green we had all expected, which has changed over to a dark plum color. Again, not too much of a shift toward “unisex” here either, but I guess it’s a small step in the right direction. And those dieting/shopping apps that were probably the most insulting part of the whole thing? Those are no where to be found, which is an entirely welcome announcement after all those rumors.

But that silly purse-friendly charm is still alive and well, and even worse it glows pink. That same rep mentioned how men could hang the charm out of their work-out bag when they’re at the gym, but that seems like more of a hassle than a step towards making life easier. Purple may be a step up from a light shade of green, but still doesn’t scream “A man’s man should own this phone!”

My point? HTC listened to the rants in the rumor phase, and in my opinion they at least attempted(albeit weakly) to calm the storm. By never actually saying that the phone was designed for women, HTC can technically get itself off the hook. The problem is that no man will buy a phone that comes with a “charm,” so no matter how much they say the phone is for “everyone,” it just takes a quick glance at the Rhyme to see how misleading that is.

Repeat:

Purposeful leaks aren’t unheard of. Not only do leaks build hype around a phone, but they give the developers a chance to gauge our first reactions. HTC didn’t do an excellent job of nixing all the obviously girl-centered features of this phone, but in small ways you can tell that we were heard.

My hope is that HTC, and every other phone maker, will pay attention to the coverage of their products before announcement. Whether the rumor itself is true or false, anonymous internet commenters give the most brutally honest feedback you could ask for. Take the hints.

Microsoft And Nokia Release Windows Phone Porting Guides For Symbian Developers

2011-09-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

Microsoft and Nokia have teamed up on a package of new tools aimed at getting Nokia developers prepared for the transition to Windows Phone. Announced today are three jointly developed tools and guides, the most notable being the addition of Symbian Qt to the Windows Phone API mapping tool.

The Windows Phone mapping tool, which already supports iOS and Android, serves as a translation dictionary between the Windows Phone platform and other mobile operating systems. With it, developers can pick out the API calls in their apps, then look up the equivalent classes, methods and notification events in Windows Phone.

To be clear, this is not a direct porting tool – it doesn’t do the work for you. Developers can simply reference the guide to aid in porting their applications.

Included in the mapping tool are the core libraries for Qt 4.7 for Symbian (QtCore, QtGui, QtLocation, QtNetwork, QtSensors, QtSql, QtXml, QtWebKit, QML Elements and QML Components). Sample code and tutorials are available, too.

Microsoft and Nokia have also released a 100-page white paper to serve as the de facto guide for Symbian Qt Application Developers interested in learning about Windows Phone. Within its 8 chapters, the companies detail Windows Phone guidelines, C# programming, the application life cycle, porting procedures and more.

Today also heralds the start of a series of developer events called the “Nokia Windows Phone Training” roadshow, with the first event being held in Paris. The events will then be held throughout Europe and Australia on the following days: Milan, Italy (Sept 26), Madrid, Spain (Sept 29), Berlin, Germany (Oct 4), London, United Kingdom (Oct 10), Sydney (Sept 24-25[SOLD OUT], Oct 8-9), Melbourne (Oct 8-9[SOLD OUT, wait list]) and Brisbane (Oct 8-9).

The U.S. dates, including the Silicon Valley dates, are not yet available.

Symbian isn’t a dead operating system just yet – after all, it received a big update just last month. But Nokia has publicly stated it plans to phase it out over time. Windows Phone is what’s next for Nokia, and it’s not surprising to see these tools and guides launch just prior to the release of the first Nokia Windows Phone, expected by year-end.

A Look At Who’s Winning The Global Internet Speed Race [Infographic]

2011-09-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

In July, we covered a study released by Pando Networks, a digital download delivery company, that outlined some striking disparities in the current quality of internet access and speed across the U.S. Among the study’s more revealing findings was the size of the gap between those at the front of the pack in terms of connectivity speeds and those at the back — a difference of tenfold. Interestingly, Rhode Island came in as the state with the fastest download speeds, compared to Idaho which brought up the rear with an average speed of 318KBps.

Today, Pando Networks has released another study that reveals the speed and reliability not just of the U.S. but of the global landscape in an attempt to provide a comprehensive look at the accessibility of the world’s data. Interestingly, the average global download speed is 580KBps, showing among other things that Idaho’s speed pales in comparison to worldwide average. But what may come as a surprise to some is that the U.S. ranked in at 26th with an average speed of 616KBps, compared to South Korea, the world speed champion, which came in with a blinding average speed of 2,202KBps.

Coming in behind South Korea are the surprise runners-up: The small eastern European nations of Romania at 1,909KBps and Bulgaria at 1,611KBps. Bet you didn’t see that coming. Especially considering that North America is so far down the list in comparison to eastern European nations, which dominated the rankings with Lithuania coming in fourth at 1,462KBps, Latvia in fifth at 1,377KBps, and Ukraine in eight at 1,190KBps. Compare this to the U.S. in 26th place, Canada in 31st, and Mexico in 86th.

In terms of the completion rate for measured downloads, Pando’s study found that they were closely correlated with average speeds, with South Korea again taking the cake with a 94 percent completion rate. closely correlates with average speed, South Korea again taking top prize with a 94% completion rate and most of the other speedy countries not far behind.

Developing nations in Africa and Asia unsurprisingly brought up the back of the pack, with the Congo showing the slowest average speed at 13KBps, the Central African Republic at 14KBps, and Comoros at 23KBps. (Other countries of note include China at 245KBps and Australia at 348KBps.)

Also of not is the study’s breakdown of global data to the city level, which yet again found that the fastest six cities are located in South Korea. Andover, Massachusetts and Bucharest, Romania were the only two cities outside of the gaming powerhouse South Korea to slide into the top 10.

Obviously, on a global level, just as it is with the U.S., the disparities between the fastest and slowest countries is jaw-dropping. Not to mention that one might expect developed countries like the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, China, and Canada to round out the top 5, while none of them even managed to break the top 20. Instead, as CEO of Pando Networks Robert Levitan said, the fastest speeds were found in markets like Eastern Europe, where “focus on infrastructure development and favorable geography promote an incredible level of connectivity”.

For more, check out Pando’s nifty infographic below or visit Pando at home here.

Verizon CEO: A Third Mobile Platform Will Emerge In The Next 12 Months

2011-09-21T21:09:00.001-07:00

iOS and Android are great, clearly. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have room in our hearts for a third platform. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam feels the same way, expecting a third “smartphone ecosystem” to butt in to the current Apple/Google dominated space.

Out of the various options, McAdam said he sees Samsung’s Bada, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5, or RIM’s forthcoming QNX-based BlackBerry platform to fill the spot. “The carriers are beginning to coalesce around the need for a third ecosystem,” said McAdam. “Over the next 12 months I think it will coalesce and you will start to see one emerge as a legitimate third ecosystem.” In my opinion, it’ll be between RIM and Microsoft, and I expect Microsoft to come out victorious.

As far as QNX is concerned, RIM will have to bring something other than messaging to the table. Messaging, whether it be through email or BBM or text, is the BlackBerry’s stand-out feature. Any BlackBerry owner I’ve ever grilled says messaging can’t be beat, but it only takes a couple minutes perusing through Android devices with a physical keyboard to realize that BlackBerry messaging isn’t worth everything you’re missing out on.

That’s not to say that I think Android phones are better messaging devices; RIM still owns the space. All I’m saying is that Android offers up messaging that works just fine, but with a million other features that are no where to be seen on a BlackBerry. And if that’s not enough, messaging in Windows Phone Mango is absolutely killer. Each contact is its own thread, and whether you’re chatting it up on Facebook, in texts, in emails, basically anything, Mango threads it all together into one cohesive conversation. Add to that speech-to-text capabilities and Mango is an easy sell.

Since messaging is the primary activity on most phones, the way it works in this or that OS is incredibly consequential. Even with share prices at a five-year low, BlackBerry users are still around and they’re just as loyal as they’ve ever been. That’s almost always a product of the line’s messaging power.

After giving us a 12-month time frame for this third platform emergence, McAdam also touched on the current legal battle between the Department of Justice and AT&T, reports Fierce Wireless. In all honesty, it not only affects Verizon and McAdam, but it really will make a difference (however minute) in all of our lives.

As far as McAdam is concerned, the most important thing he can do right now is pay very close attention to whether or not the outcome of the AT&T/DOJ suit will have any affect on Verizon. “I think it’s important to be thoughtful about this,” McAdam said.

Next Week Or Two”

2011-09-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

File this one under “It’s about time” — Microsoft has announced today that they intended to roll out their Windows Phone 7.5 (a.k.a “Mango”) update to current devices within “the next week or two.”

Sure, it’s still not an exact date, but Microsoft has a good reason for this: they can’t really provide one. According to Eric Hautala, General Manager for Customer Experience Engineering, Microsoft will push out the update, and each hardware partner will deliver a matching firmware specifically tuned for the Windows Phone it’s being pushed out to.

Since the process relies on software components from Microsoft and OEMs like HTC and Samsung, I wouldn’t expect the floodgates to open for all devices at the same time. Considering that an entire slice of the smartphone market will be getting a update of the course of a few weeks, a rolling release is probably more likely to ease the process.

Oh, and a quick warning to hackers and enthusiasts alike: Hautala was also quick to point out that anyone looking to make the official Mango jump should do well to stay away from pre-release or unofficial software builds. He doesn’t go into specifics, but it seems as though working with unofficial firmware could cause some unpleasantness when the official update tries to install.

While still vague, Microsoft’s annoucement is a huge improvement over what AT&T had to say a few weeks ago: when they announced their new line of Mango-powered Windows Phones, they also casually mentioned that the Mango update itself would begin rolling out to devices sometime “this fall.” If you just can’t wait to get your hands on Mango, feel free to mash F5 on Microsoft’s Where’s My Phone Update? page. If all goes well, the update will be pushed to your phone before the carpal tunnel sets in.

Wyse Releases New Version Of Cloud Storage App PocketCloud

2011-09-21T21:06:00.001-07:00

Wyse Technology, the developers of cloud storage app PocketCloud, is launching a new version of its service today, which turns smartphones and tablets into virtual desktops by letting you control anything on your PC from a mobile device. PocketCloud utilizes customers’ existing storage on their Mac, PC and virtual desktops rather than storing files on third-party servers. Wyse’s personal cloud costs $1 per month for unlimited storage.

With other services once a user’s files are uploaded to the cloud, control of the privacy and security of this data becomes the responsibility of a third party. Wyse provides remote access to files securely stored on users’ devices and does not limit either the number or type of files that can be shared between personal devices.

The new version of PocketCloud allows unlimited file sharing, of any file type between your iPhone and iPad and your computer for only just $1 a month. So you can link devices, and share music and other files between these devices. PocketCloud also includes support for OS X (Lion) user account authentication, and support for iPad 2 video mirroring.

Wyse claims that they are able to give you much of the same functionality as Amazon, DropBox and others at a fraction of the cost. But with Apple’s upcoming iCloud launch soon, we’ll see if PocketCloud can retain users, especially for iOS.

Nvidia Reveals Kal-El’s Secret Fifth Core For Ultra-Low-Power Tasks

2011-09-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of whispering about Nvidia’s next-generation Tegra chip, code-named Kal-El (Superman’s Kryptonian name, for the uninitiated), since it was first detailed on a roadmap back in Februrary. But it hasn’t shown up quite yet in any actual handsets or tablets, though we’re told it has been adopted by the majors and will have its debut soon.

Nvidia today released some new informationabout the SoC that confirms Tegra’s status as the brand to beat in the mobile computing world. Turns out it’s not quad-core, it’s penta-core. And the “companion core” is designed to take over while all the others go to sleep.

As you have probably suspected, load balancing and optimizing processor use is important to the battery life of many devices. The screen is usually a bigger draw, but with demand for CPU- and GPU-intensive content rising, the portion of a battery used for that processing is as well. But when you’re not playing games or watching HD movies on your phone, those high-power cores don’t operate as efficiently as one designed for low-power, low-priority tasks. So Nvidia put another one on the die, a low-power optimized core, that takes over for mundane things like notification monitoring while the phone is inactive, low-bandwidth stuff like e-reading, and so on.

Nvidia explains it all in this handy diagram, though be on the watch for self-congratulatory jargon (“console-class gaming” isn’t an industry standard term):

It’s a bit like having a city car and a hot rod in your garage. You don’t want to drive your Aston Martin in bumper-to-bumper traffic. That’s why you have a Civic too, or perhaps a Leaf. Same here. Why use ten times the CPU power necessary to perform a simple task?

You can read the rest in Nvidia’s whitepaper (PDF), but take it with a grain of salt, because TI might have some tricks up its sleeve, and even Intel might be creeping up.

Google Sites Now Allows You To Create A Mobile Landing Page

2011-09-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

Google has long offered Google Sites, which gives businesses and consumers a way to quickly build their own websites with no HTML knowledge required, making it relatively easy for anyone without a technical background to build a simple website. Until now, the platform has not had a mobile component. Today, Google is launching new functionality in Sites that allows users to create a simple mobile landing page for free.

Similar to templates for Google Sites web pages, Sites for Mobile allows users to pick a template that suits the consumer’s needs. For example, Sites offers and e-commerce template for users who want a mobile site to sell products (via Google Checkout). Google also offers customer mobile templates for local businesses, restaurants, lead generation and social.

On these mobile sites, businesses and users can include the ability to integrate their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social accounts. Users can also feature the phone number, directions to their business, coupons, menus and more. Businesses can also get analytics on traffic to their mobile sites.

Google says that mobile sites can be deployed within minutes. Google tells us that one in five search queries in retail are on mobile phone, and most of these queries are for local availability. Allowing local retailers and businesses to quickly deploy a mobile site made sense.

Considering the local element, it would make sense for some sort of integration with Google Places. But Google says that they have not yet determined how the search giant is planning to add these mobile sites to Places.

Google Says Mobile Optimized Sites Will Factor Into Landing Page Quality And Perform Better In AdWords

2011-09-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Google is announcing today that websites that are optimized for mobile will now factor into ad quality. The company says that last year it began to limit ad serving on smartphone devices if they pointed to landing pages with Flash-heavy content, in order to improve the experience for users. Now the search giant will be considering the mobile optimization of a website as a new factor of mobile ads quality for all AdWords campaigns that are driving mobile traffic.

As a result of this change, ads that have mobile optimized landing pages will perform better in AdWords and drive more traffic. The core guidelines for landing page quality apply across devices (on desktop and on mobile) but this consideration will only affect AdWords on mobile devices.

For background, Google’s landing page quality for mobile sites factors in site navigability, simple layout, content prioritization, mobile features, touch features, minimal flash, landing page load time. Landing page quality is one of several factors that determine an advertiser’s keywords’ Quality Scores.

As Google says, a poor mobile web experience can negatively shape a consumer’s opinion of a brand or company and make it hard for them to engage or make a purchase. In fact, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a website that they had trouble accessing from their phone.

Unsurprisingly, Google is pushing its own mobile site creator, through Google Sites, on publishers and site owners who want to create a simple mobile website. Considering the holiday shopping season is getting closer, retailers may want to be sure their sites fit into Google’s landing page guidelines. Certainly, this year more than ever, holiday shoppers will be using their mobile phones for search and purchasing.