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Backstage At Disrupt NYC 2012 With MakerBot’s Bre Pettis

jos — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:11:23 +0000

Bre Pettis of MakerBot stopped by our little show today and spent some time on the stage with John Biggs and other notables in the manufacturing space. But afterwards Pettis, co-founder and CEO of MakerBot, joined me on the TCTV couch to geek out a bit over the fantastic MakerBot Replicator. The company also has two MakerBot Replicators printing out random doodads and toys in our first ever Hardware Alley . As Bre explained, the original MakerBot buyers were geeks and hackers but now it’s moms and dads (like me). With the MakerBot, kids and parents can create and manufacture toys together. The Replicator can make nearly anything. It is essentially a desktop toy factory — or, for anyone else, a prototype printer allowing for rapid manufacturing. In short MakerBot is changing the world.

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Backstage At Disrupt NYC 2012 With MakerBot’s Bre Pettis

Sonos Launches The Sonos Sub (Woofer, Not Sandwich)

Achilles — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:00:53 +0000

Sonos has just gone really deep (get it?) with their new Sonos Sub, a wireless subwoofer that connects to any Sonos system and adds just a bit more oomph to the musical proceedings. The sub costs $699 and offers (according to the press release) “thick layers of bottomless sound that let you hear and feel the weight of every chord, kick, splash and roll.” The woofer connects with the AMP, ZonePlayer 120, ZonePlayer 100, the PLAY:5, and PLAY:3. It doesn’t work with the CONNECT/ZP90/ZP80. The Sub will launch on June 19. via Sonos Blog

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Sonos Launches The Sonos Sub (Woofer, Not Sandwich)

ooVoo Rolls Out Video Chat Apps For iPad And Facebook

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:00:43 +0000

Consumer video chat provider ooVoo , which has more than 46 million users worldwide, is rolling out new applications that will make its service even more attractive. And the service, which is popular among kids and young adults, will remain free on all those platforms, with monetization provided primarily through advertising served up to web users. ooVoo allows customers to create chat rooms with up to 12 participants which can be accessed through a number of different platforms and devices. The new iPad and Facebook apps come on top of apps for the iPhone, Android, Web, and PC applications that consumers can use to chat with their friends. Although up to 12 participants can join ooVoo chats, the new iPad app, available today, provides up to four simultaneous HD video chat streams to users. And with the Facebook app, the already social app will make it easier for users to find friends and to connect via video chat. In addition to sharing video chats on Facebook, ooVoo users can send invitations via email or by texting an ooVoo call link. In an ooVoo video chat through the company’s new iPad app, CEO Yuval Baharav told me that its young user base frequently uses the app for ambient communications, basically leaving their video chat windows open for hours. The average users watches about 200 minutes of video chat sessions per month. Users frequently use ooVoo as a way to remotely collaborate on music and other projects, and many record those sessions and upload them to YouTube or share them on Tumblr. As a result, ooVoo has added a free video record feature that they can use, taking the friction out of this popular usage of the app.

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ooVoo Rolls Out Video Chat Apps For iPad And Facebook

Sprint’s EVO 4G LTE Has Cleared U.S. Customs, Pre-Orders To Be Filled As Early As May 24

blogger — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:19:05 +0000

Sprint’s launch plans for the HTC EVO 4G LTE were ruined last week when shipments of their shiny new Android handset were held up by United States Customs, but we’re hearing that they may been hitting doorsteps and store shelves sooner than expected. According to Sprint , the devices are now currently sitting safely in Sprint’s warehouses and are expected to start trickling out into the world “on or around May 24.” And rest easy, you faithful pre-orderers — the world from on high is that you’ll still be getting your devices first. In case you’re new to this little shipping snafu, shipments of Sprint’s new EVO (along with those of their AT&T-based cousin, the One X) were prevented form entering the country thanks to an exclusion order handed down by the International Trade Commission. The entire convoluted story started last year, but here’s the tl;dr: Back in July, HTC was found by ITC judge Carl Charneski to have infringed on one of Apple’s patents — specifically, it involved recognizing a particular structure within a set of data and binding it to a particular action. Sounds pretty dry, I know, but if your phone lets you directly a call a phone number by touching it in an email, you’ve seen the patent in action. At the time, HTC stated that they were working on fixing the offending UI flourish, and part of the holdup for customers was apparently because the phones were being spot-checked for compliance. With Sprint’s EVO shipments said to be on the move once more, now the question becomes whether or not shipments of AT&T’s One X are as well. I’ve reached out to AT&T for confirmation one way or the other, and I’ll be updating the post as I hear more.

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Sprint’s EVO 4G LTE Has Cleared U.S. Customs, Pre-Orders To Be Filled As Early As May 24

Tagbrand Gives Fashionistas An App To Check-In Their Brands

vertical8 — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:00:42 +0000

“All people wear clothes!” declared one of Tagbrand’s founders on stage at Disrupt today. That’s true, but let’s review. DailyBooth was (is still perhaps?) a phenomenon for a time as people became accustomed to sharing their daily lives in a more quirky manner than mere video can afford. (Ok, OK, it’s a bunch of teenagers sharing their zits, but work with me here, people). Now Tagbrand wants to apply that model to fashion, but with a tagging twist. The model is simple enough. Take and upload photos of what branded clothes you are wearing and tag them. Effectively, it’s a photo check-in for brands, or ‘Foursquare for fashion’, if you will. The twist is that users are encouraged to tag up pictures with a visual tag of what brand each item of clothing is. Alas, the site does not yet do visual recognition of the clothes. Maybe one day… TagBrand doesn’t call this check-ins, but – wait for it – “brand-ins”. People can then comment or vote on the brands their friends are wearing. Clearly the opportunity here is to capture a fashion-obsessed audience and provide a platform for advertisers. Thus, although Tagbrand is like DailyBooth if everyone on DailyBooth was obsessed with fashion, it’s this tagging element which looks pretty viral. The product combines contains brands, polls and e-commerce. There’s a lot of virality built into the service – every tags has a Twitter or Facebook button on it. But clearly the people who do this are obsessed with fashion. TagBrand gives them the tools to be obsessive. The polls certainly feature makes the experience more entertaining when you’re trying clothes out. Now, clothing brands and retail stores are constantly chasing these people. This is one way of delivering them a highly targeted audience. Tagbrand’s business model is based on creating a special marketplace for them which is visible while browsing the brand’s tag on a photo. The stores provide Tagbrand with a price-list and its system attaches them to a “Recommended” block. So while browsing their friends’ clothes, users see the real-world item beside the image and can purchase from there (click are on a CPC basis). Users also get delivered latest news on brands they such as new collections. Admittedly they have older competition in the UK operation, WIWT.com , but Tagbrand’s visual tags are a slightly cuter way of doing it. TagBrand has secured a $100,000 seed investment from Russian investor Glavstart, while founders Ivan Olenchenko and Alexandr Kobozev have been working on startup projects in Russia for a while now. (And we should add they did a pretty good pitch at a TechCrunch meetup in Moscow last year). Q&A Judges asked about extending the app into giving users the ability to upload their own home made brands, and that seemed to be on the cards according to the founders. Currently in Russian and English, the app launches today in the US. The Judges also had an issue about copyright and the images uploaded, which seems a fair point. Right now 80% of usage of the product is on the iPhone app versus 20% on the web. So far they’ve had 15,000 registered users in 2 months with no promotion/marketing just in the Russian market. With about $4.5 billion spent annually on advertising clothes, they reckon there’s plenty of money to be made out there. Da!

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Tagbrand Gives Fashionistas An App To Check-In Their Brands

The Power Of Disrupt: gTar Raises $30,000 On Kickstarter In Two Hours

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:20:48 +0000

Incident took the stage this afternoon at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC and debuted the gTar. It’s safe to say that they are already a major contender for the Disrupt Cup. The startup wowed the crowd with their iPhone-powered teaching guitar . The judges loved it. The crowd loved it. And most importantly, fans turned to the startup’s Kickstarter campaign where funding took off like a rocket. Prior to hitting the stage, the gTar had raised just a touch above $10,000. Now, almost exactly two hours after their Disrupt debut, their Kickstarter funding (a.k.a. pre-orders) is north of $42,000 and rising fast. The gTar seems to hit home with most people who see the demo. It promises to take away the massive learning curve associated with playing guitar. With a progressive learning mode, the gTar essentially reinvents guitar lessons. Besides that, experienced players can rock out to the gTar’s synthesized instruments or simply play around with its LED fretboard. There is a real chance that a hardware startup will win Disrupt NYC this year and that’s very exciting.

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The Power Of Disrupt: gTar Raises $30,000 On Kickstarter In Two Hours

Digital Video Consolidation: Avail-TVN Picks Up $100M From Carlyle, Buys UK’s On Demand Group For $27M

jos — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:14:35 +0000

A double-whammy in the digital video space today: Avail-TVN , a video services provider that works with companies like NBC, Univision, and brands like Mattel, has announced that it has picked up $100 million in financing led by the Carlyle Group , and it is using those funds to make an acquisition outside of the U.S., buying rival video service provider On Demand Group in the UK from its existing owner, SeaChange International, for $27 million. Avail-TVN says that the deal will make it the largest provider of digital video services in the world. The move is a sign of how the digital TV industry is already fairly large in its geographical reach, but in many cases is still only providing incremental revenue on top of more traditional TV revenue streams — and so companies that work in this space, which can be capital intensive, are best suited to bulk up their scale to survive. Carlyle is leading the round that also includes existing investors Columbia Capital, Valhalla Partners, Novak Biddle and Pioneer Ventures. With the round of financing Carlyle, which already has an extensive amount of holdings in the media industry , becomes Avail-TVN’s largest investor. Avail-TVN will also use the funds for product development and for wider international expansion targeting content providers and multichannel video service providers. Avail-TVN already had a customer base extending outside of its U.S. headquarters, but this deal will extend that even further: it will now have customers in 25 countries covering 70 million households. Regions covered will be North America, Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. “Our strategy has been to invest in leading players across the digital media ecosystem and incorporate them into one company to build Avail-TVN into the largest provider of advanced digital video services worldwide,” said Ramu Potarazu, Avail-TVN’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “The Carlyle Group’s investment supports that vision, and provides the capital and global network to build upon this foundation both domestically and internationally.” Avail-TVN already works with provides to provide enhanced interactive digital TV services: for example, it is powering the multi-platform video coverage that NBC will run during the London 2012 Olympics this summer. Adding ODG to the mix will bump up the kinds of services it can offer to customers: ODG helps broadcasters with a range of things from content acquisition and strategic consulting services, through to powering video-on-demand services for mobile, online and digital TV services. Its customers include Virgin Media in the UK, Disney, Cablevision and others. Its existing CEO, Tony Kelly, will stay on and become a part of the bigger executive management team, and will now report to Avail-TVN’s CEO, Ramu Potarazu. There is also some debt funding involved in this deal from Silicon Valley Bank, RBS Citizens, N.A. and Bank of America, N.A.

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Digital Video Consolidation: Avail-TVN Picks Up $100M From Carlyle, Buys UK’s On Demand Group For $27M

Comcast Is Finally Rolling Out The X1, Its Set-top Box In The Cloud

blogger — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:58:33 +0000

Comcast announced Monday that it will make its newest set-top box available in Boston over the coming weeks, with a rollout planned across the entire country later this year. It’s also introducing a mobile app to control the set-top box from the iPhone or iPad. The new set-top box comes after several years of development. Comcast has been working hard to develop a new set-top box that would take all of the smarts out of the box and put it in the network, essentially allowing the cable provider to launch new services and update the new features without having to totally rewrite applications or push out new firmware. With the X1, all the processing is done in the network. That will give Comcast the flexibility to quickly test and create new apps for customers, without having to worry about how outdated its set-top boxes are. It will also provide more personalized features, such as allowing customers to see which shows their Facebook friends are watching. The new X1 iOS app will improve navigation on the set-top box, allowing subscribers to use the virtual keyboard to search through all the live and on-demand channels more efficiently than using a traditional remote control. Users can also filter by genre and interact with other social media apps. Anyway, here’s how cool I think this thing is: I haven’t been a cable subscriber for at least a year and a half, but I might just have to sign up again, just to try out the X1. So bring this thing to San Francisco, Comcast, and I’ll pay for cable TV again.

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Comcast Is Finally Rolling Out The X1, Its Set-top Box In The Cloud

SpaceX’s Historic Launch Aborted Less Than A Second Prior To Launch

admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 17:31:45 +0000

“Entering terminal count autosequence. 60 seconds to engine fire. #DragonLaunch,” Tweeted Elon Musk as his space company was less than a minute away from it’s historic flight . But the launch didn’t happen. Nothing happened as Long-time NASA commentator George Diller counted down the seconds, “3..2..1……We’ve had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur.” Musk tweeted 11 minutes later at 5:06am EDT, “Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.” The SpaceX Flacon 9 rocket was literally a half a second away from launching. NASA is still inspecting the engine but early reports, tweeted by both Musk and NASA , state that the chamber pressure on engine 5 was abnormally high, causing the rocket’s onboard computer to abort the launch. SpaceX was on the cusp of making history and becoming the first privately owned institution to dock a capsule with the International Space Station. Only governments, the US, Russia and Japan, have so far accomplished this task. Space X is hoping to take over the transport duties from NASA starting first with cargo but eventually shuttling personally between terra firma and the ISS. This isn’t SpaceX’s first rodeo. The company has been launching its Falcon rockets since 2006 although the first flight of a Falcon 1 failed a few seconds in. The rocket on the launchpad today, a Falcon 9, saw a successful first flight in 2010. Today’s launch, while cut short, will likely (hopefully) just be a footnote in SpaceX history. The company is set to try again in the coming days. The next launch attempt will come on May 22 but it could be pushed to May 23 according to some reports.

Hyperlinks Are Dumb And Bleeding Money; How To Ensure Yours Aren’t

user — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:00:39 +0000

Editor’s note: Oliver Roup is the founder and CEO of VigLink, a service that makes it easier to use affiliate programs on your blog or website. When an email hits our inbox, we know not only who it’s from but their entire web imprint . LinkedIn can point out the profile of the woman you interviewed for a sales role last week and the gentleman you spoke with earlier in the year at a conference. And rest assured that the dining room set you checked out over the weekend at CrateAndBarrel.com will haunt your online experience for the forseeable future. Data — its collection and manipulation at scale — has revolutionized how we interact online. Homepages, banner advertisements and what we see in our Facebook timeline are all tailored-to-fit the reader, and we don’t give it a second thought. But the hyperlink, the key feature that distinguishes hypertext from text has remained largely unchanged since Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web. Websites generally, and search and online advertising specifically, would be barely recognizable today by their younger selves. But hyperlinks — their structure, how they’re authored and how we use and track them — have barely changed in 20 years. Consider: Inserting links by hand is a labor intensive process and has few tools. How about a recommendation engine to augment our own efforts? (Note: companies like Zemanta are a first step in this direction.) If a link is never clicked (i.e. 0% of the world finds it useful), why does it remain in content, distracting from meaningful / useful links indefinitely? Keywords in referrer logs have been mined to great effect by companies like BlueKai . (Although Google is slowly but surely taking that information away .) Isn’t where a user clicked out to just as informative? Why are we almost always ignoring it? Why do website visitors in Asia see links to online merchants in North America they are unable to purchase from, let alone access? Hyperlinks, in many ways, are dumb. And as a result, harming your user experience and potentially bleeding money from your company — when they could be a tool for better engagement, increased revenue, and deeper analytics. Now, there are a cluster of companies innovating by recognizing the power of the link — Omniture , Vibrant Media and Yieldbot , to name a few. But, this isn’t a problem companies can hold off on thinking about until the perfect tech pops up to solve it. There was a time when SEO was considered a “pro-tip” — a way for startups to get ahead of the game. Today, it’s standard best practice — and companies that don’t think strategically about the way search engines view their sites are at a strong disadvantage. Hyperlink optimization is similar. While link optimization might be a “pro-tip” now, it won’t be for much longer. Companies that aren’t thinking strategically about link placement, closely tracking results, and taking subsequent action, will find the companies that ARE doing these things at an advantage. The most critical areas to spend time on are tracking outbound hyperlinks, building a linking strategy, and refining it based on results. Let’s briefly dive into each. Track your Outbound Hyperlinks The first step to optimizing a site’s outbound traffic is to understand what that traffic looks like. Where do visitors go when they leave your site? What do they do on those other sites? While there is still a lot of room for growth within the outbound analytics space, Omniture (paid) and Google Analytics (free — but requires a modification to the standard Analytics code you add to your site ) both offer tools to help you understand what happens when a reader leaves your site. VigLink (disclosure: I am the CEO there) also offers an outbound analytics suite as part of its content monetization solution. Build a Hyperlinking Strategy What do you want your outbound hyperlinks to do for you? Do you want them to earn you revenue? Do you want them to serve an SEO purpose? Be purely informational? Should they be scarce (keeping readers on your site)? Or abundant (allowing readers to exit as it is helpful)? Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll have a plan for when your team includes a hyperlink, and when it does not — opening up opportunities for a better reader experience, and deeper engagement. Refine, Refine, Refine Combine a plan with data to track that plan’s performance and you’ve got a gold mine on your hands. Notice a link that is never clicked and your plan requires that links must be useful to readers? Take it out. Or, a heavy percentage of links pointing to non-eCommerce properties, and your goal is monetization? Incorporate fewer links to those non-commercial sites. Refining your hyperlinks will improve reader engagement and overall site performance. Do It, and Make the Web Better Hyperlinks should make the web better — more connected, easier to navigate, and intelligent. Hyperlinks should make your site better — more actionable, insightful and profitable. Today, hyperlinks are falling short. They’re static and largely untracked. Sometimes useful — but often not. As the web becomes ever more crowded, and an organization’s site optimization toolkit begins to produce diminishing returns, the hyperlink is obvious low hanging fruit. What that means to site owners: It’s time to plug the outbound data leak. Implement a tool today that will track your outbound traffic. Choose a hyperlinking strategy and share it with your team. This is at least as much a human problem as a technology one – deciding what you want is always the first step. Be on the lookout for technology that addresses these issues. There are already solutions to track your outbound clicks and the value they deliver but 2012 is going to be the year the hyperlink gets smart.

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Hyperlinks Are Dumb And Bleeding Money; How To Ensure Yours Aren’t