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The names, at least, sound like a match made in heaven ―?BetaBait says it has acquired BetaNoodle.
And actually, the products sound like a good fit, too. BetaBait connects startups with early users through its website and email newsletter. BetaNoodle hasn’t launched yet, but it’s supposed to be an app doing something similar, but for Android developers and users.
The financial terms were not disclosed, but it sounds like BetaNoodle was a one-man shop ― the man in question being founder Austin Westfall. BetaBait co-founder Cody Barbierri (who I used to work with at VentureBeat) says Westfall will be joining his team, and that his company will be launching the BetaNoodle app in the next few months as a natural way to expand into mobile. → Read More
Thumbtack.com, a site that helps people find local service providers (from house cleaners to DJs to math tutors, to use the three examples on the company homepage), unveiled a big redesign earlier this week.
Co-founder Sander Daniels says the original version of Thumbtack tried to make finding a service provider easier by avoiding the standard search interface ― people posted what job they were looking for, then Thumbtack connected those posters with a professionals who were qualified to do the work. That’s still the basic idea, but the new site is “significantly easier and more sophisticated,” Daniels says. Now, when you type in the general category that you’re looking for, Thumbtack helps you with the listing by asking questions about the basic information that you’ll need to enter. → Read More
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They?raised $11.45 million, acquired a company called Sensobi, and were themselves?acquired by Skype?for a price that was likely well north of $43 million.
There may not be a wilder tale of a Disrupt success (though plenty of startups would beg to differ), which is why we’ve chosen GroupMe to kick off a series I’m doing on “Disrupt Startups: Where They Are Now.” → Read More
For Google Maps, winter is coming. Potentially.
As you’ve undoubtedly seen by now, with the upcoming iOS 6 software, Apple intends to replace the Google Maps aspect of their default Maps application with their own, in-house version. Mark Gurman of 9to5 Mac was the first to report this news, and dives into more of the detail behind it, including the 3D aspect.?John Paczkowski of AllThingsD confirmed the change. And after talking to my own source, I can beat the dead horse in confirming the switch.
I’ve also heard a little bit more. First of all, iOS 6, which is expected to be shown off in developer preview form at WWDC in June, is internally codenamed “Sundance”. Second, while?Paczkowski’s source said the new maps functionality will “blow your head off”, I’ve been told that’s a bit of hyperbole (you think?). Specifically, while the 3D functionality is cool, it’s also not something people are going to use regularly. Think of it like Google Street View ― cool, but how often do you actually use it when compared to the regular Google Maps product? (Having said that, I still expect Apple’s 3D maps to be cooler than Google Street View.) → Read More
I have been active in the field of gamification for the past couple of years, working with companies like Badgeville, HealthTap, Gigya, Basis and others on leveraging game mechanics for end user behavior measurement, scoring and shaping.?Last week, I participated on an investor panel of at VatorSplash’s Gamification Summit and the group shared several noteworthy points: → Read More
As the capabilities of modern browsers expand and developing standards like Google’s WebRCT initiative for real-time communications slowly find their way into most popular browsers, we’ll likely see more video collaboration software that’s currently still client-based move to the browser as well. TenHands, which is launching its private beta today (you can request an invite here) wants to be the first out of the gate in this market and sees itself as a direct competitor to Cisco’s WebEx, Microsoft Lync and other incumbents in this space. The service offers free video conference calls, screensharing, as well as built-in support for sharing documents from your desktop and Box.net. → Read More
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The people behind college flirting network Likealittle have launched a new app in the App Store, Circle, an app that attempts to be more granular and thoughtful?about the burgeoning ambient location space, which includes startups like Highlight, Banjo, Meetup and recent Facebook acquisition Glancee. While Likealittle will continue to run its course, the company will be shifting most of its focus to Circle.
Before Highlight launched at SXSW, I wrote that it needed to allow you to drill down into who could see you on the app, who could message you, and who you could see — Because some people were cool with people being alerted to their whereabouts, but wanted control levels, like being able to limit the functionality to only their friends. While Highlight has yet to add these granular settings,Circle operates exactly on this premise, allowing you to see the people around you if you and they are part of ?limited shared networks. → Read More
You know how all Android developers complain about fragmentation? Yeah, this is what fragmentation looks like.
Animoca, a Hong Kong mobile app developer that has seen more than 70 million downloads, says it does quality assurance testing with about 400 Android devices. Again, that’s testing with?four hundred different phones and tablets for every app they ship! The photo above is just a sampling of Animoca’s fleet of Android test units. → Read More
A new app has just taken the App Store by storm ― a colorful, rainbowful storm. It’s called Color Text Messages+ and the idea is relatively simple, but clearly appealing judging by the app’s popularity. The app is so popular, in fact, that Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Twitter have all just dropped down a spot to make room for the new kid on the social block.
In essence, you can now send your friends customized color text messages, complete with backgrounds and various fonts. Yep, a huge chunk of Samsung’s Galaxy Note campaign around personalizing communication on smartphones just went down the drain courtesy of a free app. But that’s not the point ― the point is that you can now send a Comic Sans text message inside a colored (or butterfly-themed) bubble.
It’s glorious.
→ Read More
Online legal services company LegalZoom filed an S-1 form this morning declaring its intention to raise up to $120 million in an IPO.
LegalZoom offers documents and subscription services to make it easier for individuals and businesses to accomplish basic legal tasks. As evidence of the company’s traction and impact, the S-1 says LegalZoom has served about 2 million customers in the past 10 years. It also says that in 2011, those customers placed 490,000 orders on the site, and during that period, more than 20 percent of limited liability companies formed in California did so through LegalZoom. → Read More
Google’s map data has been baked into the iOS Maps app since the days of the first, thick, aluminum-backed iPhone, but that may no longer be the case once iOS 6 hits the streets. Unnamed sources told 9to5Mac that the Cupertino company would instead take that opportunity to reveal their own Maps application, and those early reports paint a pretty impressive picture.
Astute readers may recall that Apple has been on something of a mapping company shopping spree these past few years — what began with the purchase of Placebase in 2009, continued with Poly9 in 2010, and culminated with Apple snapping up C3 Technologies late last year. → Read More
GoGoFantasy is a patent-pending system for crowdfunding porn. Folks with fetishes, grandmas with groin urgings, and couples into copulating can create projects and request cash in return for filming certain acts. For example, one young lady will mount two cameras in a small plane and film her activity in the cabin. And she won’t be reading her Kindle and eating peanuts, if you catch my meaning.
→ Read More
Just a day after it announced its well-received updates to its search result pages, here is some more good news for Bing: according to the latest data from Experian Hitwise, Bing-powered?searches — that is searches on Bing.com and search.yahoo.com — now account for 30.01% of all U.S. searches. By itself, Bing grew 16% year-over-year and 5% month-over-month and now accounted for 14.32% of all U.S. searches in April 2012. Yahoo grew somewhat slower, but still at a respectable 5% month-over-month and 7% year-over-year. → Read More
Comedian Louis CK has just released a new comedy special, WORD: Live At Carnegie Hall as another download/streaming offering. The special costs $5 and follows on the heels of his previous special, Live At The Beacon Theatre.
CK did no preliminary press for the release and this special contains content that fans might recognize from other live shows as well as his TV program, Louie. → Read More
I’ve been spending some quality time with HTC’s Titan II, and I would never call it a bad phone. But that’s not the question ― good, bad, fast, slow, ugly, beautiful… they don’t matter unless I feel that I’d put down money and live my life with this device. And even though I expected this to be one of my favorites, I walk away from my review certain that I wouldn’t exchange cash for this handset.
HTC is great at building quality hardware and Microsoft’s new mobile platform is fresh, different, and intuitive. But the way that the duo comes together leaves me unimpressed and disappointed, namely in the camera and the display. Past that, the thickness of the device paired with poor battery life does nothing to make up for these more minor disappointments. In essence, it’s simply not good enough.
Let’s talk about why. → Read More
According to a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the popularity of check-in apps continues to grow, though it still isn’t quite mainstream yet. Pew’s latest survey found that in February 2012, 18% of U.S. smartphone owners over 18 used geosocial check-in apps like Foursquare. That’s up from 12% in May 2011. Even among adults who said they own a cell phone but not a smartphone, 11% said they used check-in apps. This means that 10% of U.S. adults (including those who don’t own a cell phone), have now used check-in services at some point in the past. → Read More
Well that’s some slick timing. Eduardo Saverin, known for co-founding Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg back in their college days at Harvard, has given up his United States citizenship.
His name appeared on a list published on April 30 by the United States Office of the Federal Register, which issues a quarterly list of people who have given up their U.S. citizenship. The switch will almost certainly decrease the number of American taxes he owes on the $3.84 billion or so he is reportedly in line to make once Facebook goes public, which is widely expected to happen next week. → Read More
Is this Zynga’s next cash cow? It looks like Farmville 2.0 is already in beta testing under the name ‘Big Harvest’ in the Philippines, a tipster tells us.
As you can see, the game is way more three-dimensional, the crops are really lush and the graphics are just of a different quality level. There are several tweaks to the game play. Crops that are harvested can be turned into feed. Animals jump around after being fed. Players can take the milk and eggs from their animals and make pies.
Zynga declined to comment. “We don’t comment on what we may or may not be working on. What we can tell you is that we’re always looking for ways to bring players the best experience by listening to their feedback and continuously innovating on our games,” the company said in a statement. → Read More
Today Facebook will start sending the first of three billion notices to users about proposed changes to its privacy policy, which were made to comply with a Spring deadline for implementing recommendations from an audit by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. The three biggest changes Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer for Policy Erin Egan told me about when we spoke this morning are several clarifications of existing but sometimes vague policies:
Facebook’s goal is to make it as easy as possible for users to understand how their data is used, and how that’s changing. So?Facebook is also launching the?“Facebook Terms and Policies Hub” to house its 10 policy documents, including a redlined changes version?of today’s privacy policy (known as the Data Use Policy), and explanations of those changes. Facebook will hold a live-streamed Q&A about the changes on May 14th. Users will have seven days from now to give feedback on the changes before they’re?implemented barring major objections. → Read More
Here in these parts, we may write a tad too much about our Silicon Valley gaming brethren like San Francisco’s Zynga and Redwood Shores’ Electronic Arts.
But there’s actually a company that’s worth quite a bit more and has outperformed both since its IPO last December. It’s Nexon, a free-to-play gaming company that started out in South Korea and quietly grew a handful of titles into multi-billion dollar franchises over the last decade (see the chart below). The Tokyo-based company went public the same week Zynga did in December. Its shares have climbed 15 percent while Zynga’s have fallen more than 20 percent since their debuts. Now Nexon’s worth $7.9 billion while Zynga has a $5.5 billion market cap. → Read More
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