When Dennis Crowley, the CEO of Foursquare, visited the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last year, he told me he spent a lot of time explaining Foursquare to the operators and vendors that are the main visitors at this event.
This year, he said the number of business cards he was handed was "like this," making a big C-shape with his index finger and thumb. Why the change? "I think we are one of a handful of companies that builds products that would actually encourage people to upgrade their devices," he said. That’s an important fact to remember as smartphone penetration continues to grow and takeup slows down, specifically in the developed markets where Foursquare has most made its mark.
That growth in reputation has been matched by a growth in Foursquare's business: the company has tripled its numbers in the last year, going from "around five million" to more than 15 million, Crowley said.
That’s something that is impressing investors, too — with news that Spark Capital is reportedly buying up employee stock. But perhaps more interesting, he says, is that the company is starting to notice a marked change in behavior:
"People are using the app, but they're not checking in," he told me. "I asked myself: did we break something? But in fact, it's because people are using Foursquare to look for where their friends are, to find things, and as a recommendation service. It's almost like it doesn't occur to them to check in."
Crowley compares this to the moment on Twitter in 2009 when the service suddenly shifted gears, and it was not about the number of people tweeting but about how many are reading those tweets.
"When you start, you are so focused on engagement," he said. "Then you hit this point when you are big enough and say there is something awesome going on anyway. At some point you look and say, oh wow, the consumption model is actually taking off."
That seems to fit well with Crowley's vision of how Foursquare is going to grow in the near future.
Some social media sites like Facebook have made a big effort to net in members using whatever means possible — so, for example, you get pared-down Facebook experiences delivered on some of the most basic phones around.
But Foursquare seems to be more interested in behavior rather than the scale: "We want to change experiences," he said. The best way to do that, Crowley added, is to use maps, access to GPS and the other sensors you have on smartphones. "We want people to use the stuff we build, and to do that you have to focus on the great things," he said. "These are not toys; they are big defining features that are changing the tune on location serivces."
That has so far taken the company to making apps for most major mobile platforms, and while some of those are seeing especially strong usage in particular markets — BlackBerry usage, he says, is highest in southeast Asia and Brazil — by far the most popular platform is iOS.
But that growth has only partially manifested in staffing: Foursquare has gone from 18 people eight months ago to 100 now, but some big holes remain. There is, for example, only one business development guy in Europe, Omid Ashtari, who apparently currently works out of Soho House in Shoreditch, London. But there are also some key engineers coming on board from Google and other places.
And, that growth is slowly but surely starting to emerge as monetization on the platform, too. Crowley says that so far there are already 750,000 merchants registered on its platform, and most of that growth has been viral, without a salesforce driving it.
None of those merchants are being charged "yet", but he said but he said Foursquare will probably start experimenting later this year with new features that will be charged.
He said he's confident that there will be a market for this because there are already companies calling up asking what they should be budget for the services — even without them launched.
What will those features be? The kinds of tools you are already seeing around retail engagement, but with a Foursquare flavor: "We have enough check-in data to make some amazing stuff," he said.
It sounds like the data will take the form of a kind of dashboard that would segment customers and popular items. Whether the connection to the Foursquare app makes either that data easier to collect, or more unique than what can already be gathered by the businesses themselves through their loyalty programs, is the big question.
But if it appears that Foursquare is becoming a more commercial network, one thing that Crowley says it won't be in the near future is a way to pay for things. "It's not something we are actively working on," he said. "It's the bottom of the funnel for us and if we did something it would probably be in partnership."
That is probably a good thing, given how many other companies are piling in on mobile payments now, not just operators, but credit card companies, startups, and if you believe the WSJ today, big retailers like Target and Walmart.
But as a measure of how far he seems to be from this scene, he is pretty dismissive of NFC — a big topic this last week at MWC — and doesn't see the point of a phone able to make a transaction if a credit card works just as well. "I prefer to find solutions to actual problems that exist.”
[I'll be posting a short video from our conversation soon, with material not in the story. Watch this space.]
Wow. Reviews site Yelp just saw a huge pop it early trading of its stock on the New York Stock Exchange this morning. Yelp opened at $22 per share, after pricing at $15 last night. Shares, which are listed under the symbol ‘YELP’, are trading up 60 percent from last night’s pricing, putting Yelp’s valuation at over $1.3 billion
Yelp offered 7.15 million shares, aiming to raise about $107.25 million. As heard yesterday, the deal is said to be heavily over subscribed. Yelp's total revenues in 2011 were $83.2 million, up 74.6 percent from $47.7 million in 2010 (and 25.8 million in 2009), but net losses were up to $16.9 million in 2011 — a 74.2 percent increase from a net loss of $9.5 million in 2010. (Adjusted EBITDA losses were $1.1 million).
In 2011, Yelp, which was founded Jeremy Stoppelman, saw 65.7 million unique monthly visitors for the year (with 5.7 million uniques on mobile), up from 39.3 million in 2010. Yelp users left 24.8 million reviews in 2011, up from 15.1 million in 2010.
We’ll update this post on where shares close.
Wow. Reviews site Yelp just saw a huge pop in early trading of its stock on the New York Stock Exchange this morning. Yelp opened at $22 per share, after pricing at $15 last night. Shares, which are listed under the symbol ‘YELP’, are trading up 60 percent from last night’s pricing, putting Yelp’s valuation at over $1.3 billion
Yelp offered 7.15 million shares, aiming to raise about $107.25 million. As heard yesterday, the deal is said to be heavily over subscribed. Yelp's total revenues in 2011 were $83.2 million, up 74.6 percent from $47.7 million in 2010 (and 25.8 million in 2009), but net losses were up to $16.9 million in 2011 — a 74.2 percent increase from a net loss of $9.5 million in 2010. (Adjusted EBITDA losses were $1.1 million).
In 2011, Yelp, which was founded by Jeremy Stoppelman, saw 65.7 million unique monthly visitors for the year (with 5.7 million uniques on mobile), up from 39.3 million in 2010. Yelp users left 24.8 million reviews in 2011, up from 15.1 million in 2010.
We’ll update this post on where shares close.
Samsung says it has sold over 2 million Galaxy Note superphones globally. Now, it’s only fair to remember that this number includes international sales, so even though the Note only became available on February 19 here in the States, it’s been on Asian shelves since October and UK shelves since November.
Let’s put this in perspective. Apple sold twice that many (4 million) units of the iPhone 4S in its first weekend on the market. Samsung sold 3 million units of the Galaxy S II after 55 days on the market. So, when measured against these flagship smash hits, it’s hard to call the Note a mega-success.
But that’s not to say we should dismiss it. The Note has gotten pretty poor reviews, two dies in Fly or Die, and is generally more of a niche device. It’s huge, comes with a stylus, and certainly takes the user out of their comfort zone. But people still seem to be excited about it.
The company expects to sell another 10 million by the end of 2012, according to Forbes.
Samsung has made a huge marketing push with the Note, including an over-the-top Super Bowl ad, trying to bring something a bit different into the mainstream awareness. It would seem that, at least in this goal, the company has succeeded.
Now this is an interesting, if potentially flawed, concept. It’s called CoupFlip and it’s essentially a secondary market for Groupons, Amazon Deals, and the like. Say, for example, you buy a Groupon to the local stoat grooming place and you realize you don’t have a stoat. Before CoupFlip you’d have to hunt down the local chapter of the Stoat Lover’s Club and possible sell your deal at a slight loss or you eat the cost (not the stoat), vowing never to be fooled by Groupon again.
Now with CoupFlip you can upload a PDF of your deal and get cash immediately. This coupon sits quietly in the system and CoupFlip will bring it up when you visit, basing its recommendations on your location and buying habits. It is, for example, a great way to get Groupon deals (like this one) after the fact (like this).
The important distinction here is that CoupFlip “takes inventory” of deals – you don’t sell them on consignment – and you get cash on the barrelhead.
“CoupFlip capitalizes on the opportunity here for a secondary market to unlock billions of dollars of unused value. The convenience for the consumer couldn't be better. We are the best solution for the millions of people who have ever failed to use a daily deal or wish they could get their hands on a deal they missed in the original ‘flash sale,’” says CEO Phil McDonnell. McDonnell was formerly a Google engineer and now lives in New England.
“We're a Silicon Valley-style tech startup, but we're homegrown – and our sole focus at the moment is on Boston. Our key advisors are New England-based venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. To put it frankly, we're living proof of the Northeast's entrepreneurial potential,” he said.
“CoupFlip combats buyer's remorse – that pang of regret you feel after making an impulsive daily deal purchase. When you see a weekend spa package for $99, you don't calculate the long-term impact of that purchase on your personal finances. You jump at the deal immediately – right then and there – because you emotionally know it's a darn good deal,” writes McDonnel.
“Unfortunately, even if that weekend spa package is an incredible deal, it might not make sense for you personally. That's where CoupFlip steps in.”
There doesn’t seem to be anything outright wrong about CoupFlip’s efforts although I suspect Groupon may feel differently. However, it’s exactly the same as give your friend a coupon and, barring any pending requirements to show photo ID and proof of citizenship at your local thai place in order to get the $20 for $40 of food special, there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s just a market for coupons, pure and simple.
What are the flaws? Well, people sell deals for a reason – they’re usually bad. The company could topple over with the weight of unwanted junk. CoupFlip uses algorithms to rate the popularity and potential for sale and prices the coupons accordingly. While you might get less for the stoat washing service, you’ll probably get more for a $50 dinner for four at Masa. Besides, the world needs parasitic services like this one – just ask StubHub.
The Galaxy Note from Samsung has been a tough one for us to figure out. Is it a phone? Is it a tablet? Wait! Is that a stylus?
There was plenty to wonder about. But after spending quite a bit of time with the superphone, which you can relive with me here, John and I decided to chat out what all the fuss is about.
The phone itself is solid, feels premium for the most part, and LTE makes Mr. Big Stuff over here super fast. The S-Pen is fun, but meh at best. Truth be told, the real issue is size. At 5.3-inches, its 1280×800 HD Super AMOLED display poses benefits as well as problems.
John and I discuss this and more, trying to figure out whether Samsung’s huge marketing push for this thing is really worth the trouble.
For better or worse, it seems as if Windows 8 will be available in nine separate editions. That’s up three flavors from Windows 7. The unofficial news comes from a registry key found within the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. If this key is to be believed, Windows 8 will be available in the six editions of Windows 7 with the addition of Windows 8 Professional Plus, Enterprise Evaluation, and ARM edition. That makes nine Windows 8 versions in all — seven more editions than Apple’s OS X.
The difference is important. It speaks to the approach these to companies have towards OS sales. Microsoft, the still massively dominant player in desktop computing, has a version for nearly every environment ranging from OEM netbooks to massive enterprise environments. The difference between the versions often involves additional (or missing) applications, networking support and security features. On the other hand, Apple puts all their goodies in one basket and sells only one consumer desktop option. There’s always OS X server, too, which Apple branded as the “Server For Everyone”.
These differences are even more apparent when considering their price. OS X costs $29.99 and Server is only $49.99. Windows 7 Starter and Basic isn’t sold directly to consumers but they can still be found online for less than $100. The Microsoft Store lists Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate from $199, $299, and $319, respectively (upgrade prices are a bit less).
Navigating the different versions of Windows is a hassle. The operating system can cost nearly as much as new computer. Plus, if a consumer was going to spend hundreds of dollars for the OS, they’re forced to either spend even more money or live with missing features. Windows is heavily pirated for a reason.
Apple on the other hand shoehorns everything into one version and makes it available for a relatively low price. Why? Apple is a hardware company that happens to also sell software. Apple make money when they ship hardware, not software. Apple just needs its software to keep users happy and interested in coming back for more hardware, not pay the company’s light bill.
As a software company, Microsoft doesn’t have this luxury. Redmond must make money off software like Windows and Office. This is their bread and butter. However, prior to Windows 7, Microsoft had trouble encouraging enterprises to upgrade to the latest version of Windows — Windows XP SP3 is just that good like Windows 2000 before it. Windows Vista was a bust just short of the disaster of Windows ME. Microsoft hit it out of the park with Windows 7, though, and is going to have a hard time convincing enterprise customers to upgrade to Windows 8.
Windows 7 was nearly an instant hit. It hit 4% of the total desktop market share in just three weeks after its release. Microsoft moved more than 100 million copies in six months, making it the company’s fastest selling operating system ever. As of January 2012, it’s estimated that Microsoft sold more than 525 million copies of Windows — a feat partly accomplished by the six separate versions of the OS.
There isn’t a winner here. Microsoft and Apple have different approaches and goals in regards to its desktop operating system. It’s easy to stand on a soapbox and at Redmond, “You’re doing it wrong! No one wants to spend $300 on an OS!” But that fact is Microsoft seems to know what they’re doing and have the numbers to back it up. Likewise, Apple is on a tear lately, pushing out new revisions of OS X every year and as the Mac’s market share increases. That said, Microsoft has a lot more riding on the success of Windows 8 than Apple does on Mountain Lion.
Windows 8 will be released later this year and will finally push Microsoft into the so-called post-PC world. It has a tough game ahead. Windows 8 needs to curb OS X’s explosive growth and kill the iPad. Like Windows 7 before it, Microsoft is letting consumers try out a final beta copy prior to its release (download info here). Windows 8 needs to be more than a home run; it needs to be a World Series game 7 walk-off grand slam against team Apple.
[image credit: engadget]
For better or worse, it seems as if Windows 8 will be available in nine separate editions. That’s up three flavors from Windows 7. The unofficial news comes from a registry key found within the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. If this key is to be believed, Windows 8 will be available in the six editions of Windows 7 with the addition of Windows 8 Professional Plus, Enterprise Evaluation, and ARM edition. That makes nine Windows 8 versions in all — seven more editions than Apple’s OS X.
The difference is important. It speaks to the approach these to companies have toward OS sales. Microsoft, the still massively dominant player in desktop computing, has a version for nearly every environment ranging from OEM netbooks to massive enterprise environments. The difference between the versions often involves additional (or missing) applications, networking support and security features. On the other hand, Apple puts all their goodies in one basket and sells only one consumer desktop option. There’s always OS X server, too, which Apple branded as the “Server For Everyone”.
These differences are even more apparent when considering their price. OS X costs $29.99 and Server is only $49.99. Windows 7 Starter and Basic isn’t sold directly to consumers but they can still be found online for less than $100. The Microsoft Store lists Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate from $199, $299, and $319, respectively (upgrade prices are a bit less).
Navigating the different versions of Windows is a hassle. The operating system can cost nearly as much as new computer. Plus, if a consumer was going to spend hundreds of dollars for the OS, they’re forced to either spend even more money or live with missing features. Windows is heavily pirated for a reason.
Apple on the other hand shoehorns everything into one version and makes it available for a relatively low price. Why? Apple is a hardware company that happens to also sell software. Apple makes money when they ship hardware, not software. Apple just needs its software to keep users happy and interested in coming back for more hardware, not pay the company’s light bill.
As a software company, Microsoft doesn’t have this luxury. Redmond must make money off software like Windows and Office. This is their bread and butter. However, prior to Windows 7, Microsoft had trouble encouraging enterprises to upgrade to the latest version of Windows — Windows XP SP3 is just that good, like Windows 2000 before it. Windows Vista was a bust just short of the disaster of Windows ME. Microsoft hit it out of the park with Windows 7, though, and is going to have a hard time convincing enterprise customers to upgrade to Windows 8.
Windows 7 was nearly an instant hit. It hit 4 percent of the total desktop market share just three weeks after its release. Microsoft moved more than 100 million copies in six months, making it the company’s fastest selling operating system ever. As of January 2012, it’s estimated that Microsoft sold more than 525 million copies of Windows — a feat partly accomplished by the six separate versions of the OS.
There isn’t a winner here. Microsoft and Apple have different approaches and goals in regards to their desktop operating systems. It’s easy to stand on a soapbox and yell at Redmond, “You’re doing it wrong! No one wants to spend $300 on an OS!” But that fact is Microsoft seems to know what they’re doing and have the numbers to back it up. Likewise, Apple is on a tear lately, pushing out new revisions of OS X every year as the Mac’s market share increases. That said, Microsoft has a lot more riding on the success of Windows 8 than Apple does on Mountain Lion.
Windows 8 will be released later this year and will finally push Microsoft into the so-called post-PC world. It has a tough game ahead. Windows 8 needs to curb OS X’s explosive growth and kill the iPad. Like Windows 7 before it, Microsoft is letting consumers try out a final beta copy prior to its release (download info here). Windows 8 needs to be more than a home run; it needs to be a World Series game 7 walk-off grand slam against team Apple.
[image credit: engadget]
Former Disrupt winners Soluto love them some Windows. It’s their OS of choice and their products aspire to make it work a little better. Needless to say, they’re pretty excited about Windows 8 and to celebrate their unbridled joy they create this cute little commercial lampooning Apple’s original 1984 bit.
As Windows becomes more secure and presumably more stable I wonder how much longer companies like Soluto and anti-virus purveyors like McAffee and Avast can stay in the same business. However, if history is any guide, Windows will need tweaks, improvements, and fixes from now until time immemorial. Nice work if you can get it. Hello Metro
It may have taken longer than even its own creators might have guessed, but it’s finally come to pass: Brizzly, the Twitter/Facebook client that was bought by AOL as part of Thing Labs in September 2010, is shutting up shop at the end of March, with the news announced last night on Brizzly’s blog by Grant Shellen, and co-signed by Zachary Taylor and Jason Shellen, Brizzly’s and Thing Labs’ co-founders.
Behind the move to shut down Brizzly is another story, it seems, about what is going on with AOL and its social media ambitions for its instant messaging service, AIM.
Since the acquisition of Think Labs, the team, according to the blog, has been putting most of their efforts into AIM.
“Once we set to the task at hand—improving the hell out of AIM—we had little to no time to work on Brizzly, and it became clear that the new things we're working on are far more worth our time and attention,” Shellen wrote.
That has included a re-vamp, launched last month, which has tried to make the product significantly more “social”: there is now an expanded group chat function; as well as updates on when people have mentioned, liked, followed or commented on your Twitter, Facebook and Instagram content; and email alerts for AOL Mail and Gmail.
But it is not a replacement for Brizzly because the one crucial thing it doesn’t do is incorporate those social media feeds themselves. Why wasn’t that included? It might appear in a later incarnation, but for now the impression is that AOL, ideally, would like to keep all potential interactions in its own garden. (And in any case, that is what is happening as a result.)
Yes, it seems that AOL definitely wants to keep its place at the social media table. However, its chair seems to be getting increasingly creaky.
AOL does not say how many active users there are on AIM right now, but the picture doesn’t look very good. In the company’s last quarterly earnings, AOL noted that AIM numbers were in decline (with those declines being offset by the Huffington Post Media Group, owners of TechCrunch).
ComScore (yes, they can be problematic) estimated that as of October last year, AIM's active users were at 4.9 million — a decline of 65 percent a year ago (that's not including mobile and tablet access, just PC). It's now third behind Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger from Microsoft.
I don’t know how many users Brizzly had (I’m trying to find out and will update this when and if I do), but it was a cool and useful service. Now, the talented folks from Thing Labs, rather than working on totally new, groundbreaking products, are clearly doing some interesting work in getting the decidedly more legacy AIM up to speed. But whether all that effort will be enough to bring up user numbers — and subsequently create revenue streams — remains to be seen.
A worrying trend for this strategy is that in general the IM market appears to be getting less popular — possibly propelled by users more focused on Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the new guard. ComScore notes that usage of IM services in the U.S. dropped by 31 percent over the year to 36.8 million visitors. In other words, a social media plan focused around AIM is either very, very visionary or going totally against what appear to be pretty strong market indications.
There’s an old saying in London. You wait an hour for a bus and then three come along at once. Thus, for the last few years people have been asking me when London would get a large technology conference which catered for startups. Admittedly I had a good go with GeeknRolla, which has now been replaced by the London Web Summit on March 19. But now London is being spoiled by yet another event: Le Web, the huge annual conference in Paris in December, is adding a Summer edition conference in London. If you’re looking for a ‘third bus’ to complete the analogue, then check out Digital London, a slightly more corporate event but one which looks like it has some interesting tracks on the future of cities, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Due to be beld on June 19th and 20th, I’ve heard that Le Web London is partly the result of heavy lobbying by the UK government and the UK Trade and Industry department’s Tech City team to get them here. So it looks like our taxes are starting to bear a little fruit…
The venue will be Central Hall Westminster, so super central London. No confirmed speakers as yet but we’re sure Loic and Geraldine Le Meur will pull off a great show with great speakers, as their contact book in Silicon Valley is hard to beat.
Registration is now open, including a 50% discount on the ticket price for the next two weeks and a special discount package for Le Web London and Lew Web Paris.
Meanwhile, please don’t ask in the comments if they will change the name to “The Web” for London. That joke boat has sailed.
Here’s Loic and Geraldine with the announcement.
ForgeRock, the open source vendor behind the I³ Open Identity middleware platform, has raised $7 million in Series A funding from Accel Partners.
ForgeRock offers one unified platform approach to solve enterprise companies’ secure Identity management challenges. The I³ Open Platform allows customers to manage Authentication, Access Management, User Entitlements, Federation, Identity lifecycle management, provisioning and more. This can be implemented in-house, or in a private or public cloud infrastructure.
I³ products currently include: OpenAM (Access Manager) for Authentication, SSO, and Cloud-enabled Federation; OpenIDM (Identity Manager), which is a scalable identity lifecycle management and provisioning solution; and OpenDJ (Directory Java, a next gen identity repository.
Accel partner Bruce Golden explains of the firm’s investment and interest in ForgeRock: Accel seeks to invest in businesses that have the potential to become category leaders in fast growing new markets, or show potential for large-scale disruption in existing markets. Identity management is a crucial business and technology issue for businesses of all sizes, and we believe that ForgeRock is well positioned to become a leader in this market.
ForgeRock enables Identity management for a number of well-known customers including Thomson Reuters, BSkyB, News International, Nokia Siemens Networks, Betfair, AOL, Toyota, Lexmark, Wirecard, Aberdeen Asset Management, OTE, Allianz, Lloyds International, VPS, Capgemini, NSB, Xerox, Vodafone, Nomura, and BNP Paribas.
ForgeRock, the open source vendor behind the I³ Open Identity middleware platform, has raised $7 million in series A funding from Accel Partners.
ForgeRock offers one unified platform approach to solve enterprise company’s secure Identity management challenges. The I³ Open Platform allows customers to manage Authentication, Access Management, User Entitlements, Federation, Identity lifecycle management, provisioning and more. This can be implemented in-house, or in a private or public cloud infrastructure.
I³ products currently include: OpenAM (Access Manager) for Authentication, SSO, and Cloud-enabled Federation; OpenIDM (Identity Manager), which is a scalable identity lifecycle management and provisioning solution; and OpenDJ (Directory Java, a next gen identity repository.
Accel partner Bruce Golden explains of the firm’s investment and interest in ForgeRock: Accel seeks to invest in businesses that have the potential to become category leaders in fast growing new markets, or show potential for large-scale disruption in existing markets. Identity management is a crucial business and technology issue for businesses of all sizes, and we believe that ForgeRock is well positioned to become a leader in this market.
ForgeRock enables Identity management for a number of well-known customers including Thomson Reuters, BSkyB, News International, Nokia Siemens Networks, Betfair, AOL, Toyota, Lexmark, Wirecard, Aberdeen Asset Management, OTE, Allianz, Lloyds International, VPS, Capgemini, NSB, Xerox, Vodafone, Nomura, and BNP Paribas.
Not two weeks ago, Erick was on hand at a news conference in which Barry Diller and company presented IAC’s latest media-tech investment — a startup called Aereo. Simply put, Aereo streams broadcast TV through the browser and provides a DVR in the cloud by “miniaturizing TV antennas and packing them in equipment that sits on the network,” as Erick wrote at the time. The cloud-based service streams over-the-air channels for just $12 a month, which means that, even in spite of the unassuming size of its antennae, Aereo’s model represents a threat to the major broadcasters.
Today, a group of broadcasters, including Fox, Univision, and PBS filed two separate lawsuits against Aereo (the two groups collectively represent most of the major media outlets in New York City), basically claiming that the startup is infringing on the broadcasters’ copyright and that the technology fails to meet the criteria of any sort of legal loophole. The broadcasters are collectively going after an injunction, which would prevent Aereo from releasing its product on the market. It also appears that the broadcasters will be seeking monetary damages “for what they claim are Aereo’s violations of the Copyright Act,” according to the New York Times.
Barry Diller loves to ruffle the feathers of old media, and there’s no way that he was unaware this was coming. As the company describes its intersection: “Live broadcast TV, meet the Internet. Finally.” There was no way that something like this was going to slide under the noses of the tycoons, especially with Aereo planning to roll out in Brooklyn in the next few weeks — and for that extremely low price point.
Disruption of traditional media has been tried again and again, and unfortunately many of those startups or companies have failed because of the legal quagmire the broadcasters can afford to mire them in. Try to mess with the structure, and there’s a good chance you’ll get sued until the cows come home.
In the lawsuit, which you can find on Scribd here, the broadcasters basically say that it doesn’t matter how big the rabbit ears on top of their boob tube is:
No amount of technological gimmickery by Aereo — or claims that it is simply providing a set of sophisticated “rabbit ears” — changes the fundamental principle of Copyright Law that those who wish to retransmit [their] broadcasts may do so only with [their] permission. Simply put, Aereo is an unauthorized Internet delivery service …
So there you have it. And just in case there was any question of whether or not this was going to end up in court, settled by the gavel, we’ve just been pointed to Aereo’s response to the broadcasters’ lawsuits. Boiled down to a sentence, Aereo is standing firm in its innocence, and doesn’t think the broadcasters’ position has “any merit,” and will be seeing them in court, thank you very much:
Today, two groups of broadcasters filed two separate federal lawsuits against Aereo in the Southern District of New York claiming that Aereo will infringe their copyrights by making available technology which enables consumers to access broadcast television via a remote antenna and DVR. Aereo does not believe that the broadcasters' position has any merit and it very much looks forward to a full and fair airing of the issues.
Consumers are legally entitled to access broadcast television via an antenna and they are entitled to record television content for their personal use. Innovations in technology over time, from digital signals to Digital Video Recorders ("DVRs"), have made access to television easier and better for consumers. Aereo provides technology that enables consumers to use their cloud DVR and their remote antenna to record and watch the broadcast television signal to which they are entitled anywhere they are, whether on a phone, a tablet, a television or a laptop.
Barely two weeks ago, Erick was on hand at a news conference in which Barry Diller and company presented IAC’s latest media-tech investment — a startup called Aereo. Simply put, Aereo streams broadcast TV through the browser and provides a DVR in the cloud by “miniaturizing TV antennas and packing them in equipment that sits on the network,” as Erick wrote at the time. The cloud-based service streams over-the-air channels for just $12 a month, which means that, even in spite of the unassuming size of its antennae, Aereo’s model represents a threat to the old guard.
Today, a group of broadcasters, including Fox, Univision, and PBS filed two separate lawsuits against Aereo (the two groups collectively represent most of the major media outlets in New York City), claiming that the startup is infringing on the broadcasters’ copyrights and that its technology fails to meet the criteria of any sort of legal loophole. As such, the broadcasters are seeking an injunction, which would prevent Aereo from releasing its product on the market. In addition, the broadcasters will be seeking monetary damages “for what they claim are Aereo’s violations of the Copyright Act,” according to the New York Times.
Barry Diller loves to ruffle the feathers of old media, and there’s no way that he was unaware this was coming. According to the startup’s self-description — “Live broadcast TV, meet the Internet. Finally.” — there was no way that something like this was going to slide under the noses of the tycoons, especially considering that Aereo had been planning to roll out its service in Brooklyn in the next few weeks — and at that undercutting price point.
Disruption of traditional media has been tried again and again, and unfortunately many of those startups or companies have failed because of the legal quagmire the broadcasters can afford to mire them in. Try to mess with the structure, and there’s a good chance you’ll get sued until the cows come home.
In the lawsuit, which you can find on Scribd here, the broadcasters basically say that it doesn’t matter how big those rascally-rabbit ears on top of their boob tube are:
No amount of technological gimmickery by Aereo — or claims that it is simply providing a set of sophisticated “rabbit ears” — changes the fundamental principle of Copyright Law that those who wish to retransmit [their] broadcasts may do so only with [their] permission. Simply put, Aereo is an unauthorized Internet delivery service that is receiving, converting and retransmitting broadcast signals to its subscribers for a fee…
So there you have it. Aereo believes it is not culpable here, because its individual subscribers are linked to a set of antenna, and as Jeff Roberts at paidContent points out, Cablevision successfully defended a similar case regarding its remote digital video recorder technology, “after an appeals court found that there was no [actual] transmission to the public.”
Nonetheless, just in case there was any question of whether or not this was going to end up in court, settled by the gavel, we’ve just been pointed to Aereo’s response to the broadcasters’ lawsuits. Boiled down to a sentence, Aereo is standing firm in its innocence, and doesn’t think the broadcasters’ position has “any merit,” and will be seeing them in court, thank you very much:
Today, two groups of broadcasters filed two separate federal lawsuits against Aereo in the Southern District of New York claiming that Aereo will infringe their copyrights by making available technology which enables consumers to access broadcast television via a remote antenna and DVR. Aereo does not believe that the broadcasters' position has any merit and it very much looks forward to a full and fair airing of the issues.
Consumers are legally entitled to access broadcast television via an antenna and they are entitled to record television content for their personal use. Innovations in technology over time, from digital signals to Digital Video Recorders ("DVRs"), have made access to television easier and better for consumers. Aereo provides technology that enables consumers to use their cloud DVR and their remote antenna to record and watch the broadcast television signal to which they are entitled anywhere they are, whether on a phone, a tablet, a television or a laptop.
With the social travel space taking off right now, and competition increasing, it really behooves the bigger players in the space not to do too much smelling of the roses. Social travel planning startup Gogobot would be a good example. The site found some early adoption and buzz, after winning a Crunchie for Best Design and was named one of the best 50 websites of 2011 by Time.
Initially, Gogobot was designed to be a place people could go to share reviews on their favorite destinations — like Yelp for travel. But it quickly began adding features, like the requisite inclusion of Facebook and Twitter signup/integration, game mechanics and rewards (like badges and leaderboards), and launched a good-looking mobile version in iOS app form. These moves beefed up the service significantly, and led to the startup’s $15 million series A raise in November.
Gogobot then went on to leverage its user-generated database of travel photos in a smart partnership with Flipboard that would turn its photos into sleek, geo-tagged postcards, like a travel scrapbook. Yet, since launching its iPhone app in October, Gogobot has pretty much left its sole mobile app alone, aside from a number of small releases mainly focused on speed and performance.
That approach is changing today, though, as Gogobot has launched its first major upgrade to its iPhone app, which looks to add to the app’s utility as a social travel planner. Gogobot CEO Travis Katz tells us that, initially the team figured that users wanted to do most of their travel planning on their desktops, and use mobile to navigate their trips and share their experiences. But user feedback showed the opposite — that people want to plan their trip, explore, and share while on the go, too.
So the new mobile Gogobot now allows users to plan their entire trips to one of more than 60,000 travel destinations, based on recommendations from friends and those with similar interests. Users can browse reviews and photos of hotels, restaurants, and attractions (which Gogobot sorts based on their popularity within your personal network), picking and choosing from the best options to create their own travel plan. They then get instant access to maps and directions, phone numbers, hours of operation, making reservations at restaurants and booking hotels rooms right from the app.
Once they get back home, Gogobot users can surf through the photos of friends and family who are still out on the go, with Gogobot collecting those images into postcards. According to Katz, this has become one of Gogobot’s most popular features, and has also received an upgrade, now offering users access to two postcard styles which can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, or email. Gogobot users can still add places and write reviews to their Gogobot passport while on the go, but browsing the best things to do, and adding those places they like to their trip plan are great new features while you’re maneuvering about on your vacation. It’s also pretty huge that Gogobot sorts the top places in any city, based on your own personal network, so if your friends have been to a specific hotel or city, Gogobot will show those friendsourced recommendations first. If you don’t, it sorts them based on popularity, and always surfaces the reviews that have personal relevance within your network first. For example, this is the passport Gogobot created for Mista Katz, without doing any work.
And just for a sense of how far the startup has come? TripAdvisor, by all accounts the largest player in the space, (which also went public in December and grew revenues to $137 million in February), comes up short of Gogobot in monthly active users, according to AppData. It’s behind in dailies, but keep in mind AppData just measures Facebook data, only a portion of Gogobot’s user base. It’s a solid update from Gogobot, and worth checking out.
You can find the updated app in the App Store here.
With the social travel space booming, it behooves the players in the space not to do too much smelling of the roses. Social travel planning startup Gogobot has found some early adoption and buzz, winning a Crunchie for Best Design and was named one of the best 50 websites of 2011 by Time. The site launched as a place people could go to share reviews on their favorite destinations — like Yelp for travel — but quickly began adding features, including Facebook and Twitter signup and integration, game mechanics and rewards (badges and leaderboards), launched a good-looking iOS app, within a few months last year, leading to a $15 million series A raise in November.
The startup then went on to leverage its user-generated database of travel photos in a partnership with Flipboard to turn those photos into sleek, geo-tagged postcards, like a travel scrapbook. Yet, since launching its iPhone app in October, Gogobot has pretty much left its sole mobile app alone, doing a number of small releases focused on speed and performance.
That is changing today, as Gogobot has launched its first major upgrade to its iPhone app, which looks to add to the app’s utility as a social travel planner. Gogobot CEO Travis Katz tells us that, initially the team figured that users wanted to do most of their travel planning on their desktops, and use mobile to navigate their trips and share their experiences. But user feedback showed the opposite — that people want to plan their trip, explore, and share while on the go.
So the new Gogobot mobile now allows users to plan their entire trips to one of more than 60,000 travel destinations, based on recommendations from friends and those with similar interests. Users can browse reviews and photos of hotels, restaurants, and attractions (which Gogobot sorts based on their popularity within your personal network), picking and choosing from the best options to create their own travel plan. They then get instant access to maps and directions, phone numbers, hours of operation, making reservations at restaurants and booking hotels rooms right from the app.
Once they get back home, Gogobot users can surf through the photos of friends and family who are on the go, with Gogobot collecting those images into postcards. According to Katz, this has become one of Gogobot’s most popular features, and has also received an upgrade, now offering users access to two postcard styles which can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, or email. Gogobot users can still add places and write reviews to their Gogobot passport while on the go, but browsing the best things to do, and adding those places they like to their trip plan are great new features while you’re maneuvering about on your vacation. It’s also pretty huge that Gogobot sorts the top places in any city, based on your own personal network, so if your friends have been to a specific hotel or city, Gogobot will show those friendsourced recommendations first. If you don’t, it sorts them based on popularity, and always surfaces the reviews that have personal relevance within your network first. For example, this is the passport Gogobot created for Katz, without doing any work.
And just for a sense of how far the startup has come? TripAdvisor, by all accounts the largest player in the space, which went public in December and grew revenues to $137 million in February, comes up short of Gogobot in monthly active users, according to AppData. Behind in dailies, but keep in mind that’s just for Facebook data, only a portion of Gogobot’s user base.
You can find the updated app in the App Store here.
It looks like Twitter has promoted three of its directors.
A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment for this story, but the promotions aren’t exactly a secret. Both Elad Gil (pictured) and Joel Lunenfeld have updated their LinkedIn profiles to reflect their new titles — vice president of corporate strategy and vice president of global sales strategy, respectively. Gil joined Twitter after the company acquired his location data startup Mixer Labs, while Lunenfeld’s profile says he spent nearly a decade as the CEO of marketing agency Moxie Interactive.
Meanwhile, Chloe Sladden, who was Twitter’s director of content and programming, seemed to confirm via tweet that she has been promoted to VP status as well. Her LinkedIn profile hasn’t been similarly updated, but it seems safe to assume that she’s vice president of content and programming, or something in that vein. She was previously VP of Special Programming Projects at Current.
As far as I can tell, these are new positions. From the outside, at least, it looks like Twitter is just giving a more seniority and fancier titles to the company’s current leadership — a natural step as it grows.
Tomorrow morning comes the moment Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman’s been waiting for seven years. According to the NYT, Yelp will drop on the NYSE under the YELP ticker tomorrow morning.
Yelp will be offering 7.15 million shares at $15 dollars a share, wanting to raise about $107.25 million in its IPO. The deal is said to be heavily over subscribed, and I’ve heard that some Yelpers were disappointed by the low price — despite the fact that the company is still not profitable, despite trading at a valuation of more than ten times its earnings.
While Yelp generated $83.3 million in 2011, it also operated at a $16.9 million loss.
Yelp will be the fourth in a series of high profile tech IPOs, with Groupon, LinkedIn, and Zynga all debuting before it to mixed results. Industry giant Facebook is set to
wreak havoc
IPO in the spring.
Tomorrow morning comes the moment Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman’s been waiting for seven years. According to the NYT, Yelp will drop on the NYSE under the YELP ticker tomorrow morning.
Yelp will be offering 7.15 million shares at $15 dollars a share, wanting to raise about $107.25 million in its IPO. The deal is said to be heavily over subscribed, and I’ve heard that some Yelpers were disappointed by the low price — despite the fact that the company is still not profitable and trading at a valuation of more than ten times its earnings.
While Yelp generated $83.3 million in 2011, it also operated at a $16.9 million loss.
Yelp will be the fourth in a series of high profile tech IPOs, with Groupon, LinkedIn, and Zynga all debuting before it to mixed results. Industry giant Facebook is set to
wreak havoc
IPO in the spring.
Tomorrow morning comes the moment Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman’s been waiting for seven years. According to the NYT, Yelp will drop on the NYSE under the YELP ticker tomorrow morning.
Yelp will be offering 7.15 million shares at $15 dollars a share, wanting to raise about $107.25 million in its IPO. The deal is said to be heavily over subscribed, and I’ve heard that some Yelpers were disappointed by the low price — despite the fact that the company is still not profitable and trading at a valuation of more than ten times its revenues.
While Yelp generated $83.3 million in 2011, it also operated at a $16.9 million loss.
Yelp will be the fourth in a series of high profile tech IPOs, with Groupon, LinkedIn, and Zynga all debuting before it to mixed results. Industry giant Facebook is set to
wreak havoc
IPO in the spring.
Say the Mayans are right, and a meteor or some other catastrophe strikes the Earth sometime later this year. Assuming we’re not all wiped out by the impact, emergency services worldwide are going to need to do some serious canvassing to assess damage, resources, and form a picture of the disaster.
DARPA is running a little game, called CLIQRQuest, to look into how such a network of people might do such a task. But instead of asking people to snap pictures of reservoirs and hospitals, they’re giving cash prizes for finding QR codes.
Not just any QR codes, of course; the agency has distributed codes like the one at right throughout the continental U.S. “to represent the dispersion of resource concentrations throughout the country.” So there won’t be many pasted to signposts in the great plains, but presumably there will be lots in population- and resource-rich areas like larger cities and ports. How many are there? DARPA isn’t saying, though they helpfully note that the number is “finite.”
Yet it’s not just a scavenger hunt. After all, it would be difficult for an individual or even a good-sized team to physically scan however many tags are out there. And DARPA has already conducted experiments that have proven the efficacy of crowdsourcing a task like that.
So, as DARPA puts it, this is more a test of exchanging information via social media. You’ve got people all over the place scanning these codes, which are supposed to represent water, food, generators, and so on. You advertise what you’ve got, leverage your social connections, start a website, make an app — however you want to do it. The winner is either the person who collects all the codes or the person with the most when the contest ends on the 12th.
You’re not going to rank even if you scanned every code for a hundred miles. You need the others to volunteer their information, and they need you to do the same, with the shared goal of getting all that info in one place as fast as possible. It’s a fairly good representation of the problem they are investigating.
The contest is going on right now and you can join in if you like — just register at the spartan contest webpage and start submitting codes you’ve gotten by whatever means you have available.
