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Make It Social: VEVO Sees 600% Increase In Facebook Traffic After Redesign

bestcbstore — Thu, 24 May 2012 09:01:19 +0000

In March, VEVO launched a bold new redesign that provided TV-like viewing, with instantaneous and continuous playback. But the biggest addition to the platform, other than a beautiful new full-screen player, was a new social sharing feature that takes advantage of Facebook Open Graph. Not surprisingly, VEVO seen a dramatic increase in the number of videos that are watched and shared on the social network since then. VEVO has seen a 600 percent increase in Facebook-published or -watched videos when compared to February, to 4.5 million. It’s also signed up half a million new users via Facebook, which represents a 142 percent increase over the previous month. And the total number of impressions on Facebook grew to 171 million, which is a 181 percent change from February. A caveat: VEVO isn’t the only video provider to see a jump in sharing and usage immediately after integrating with Facebook Open Graph. Video applications like Viddy and Socialcam had seen huge increases in the amount of viewership and registrations after adding seamless sharing. But Facebook giveth and Facebook taketh away — and VEVO can’t count on that tremendous growth to continue indefinitely. That said, it’s not just viewership from Facebook that is increasing. VEVO is also showing an uptick in engagement from users, who are watching more videos longer. Viewers watched an average of 4.3 videos in March, compared to 3.8 videos viewed in February. And they spent 15.2 minutes on the site, compared to 13.1 minutes during the prior month. Facebook also isn’t the only place where viewers are tuning in to watch music videos on VEVO. The video service is also seeing huge amounts of viewership on mobile devices. In the first three months of the year, VEVO saw 254 million worldwide streams on mobile devices and connected TV apps, which is up 32 percent from the previous quarter. It also saw active users for iPhone grow 28 percent and iPad grow 22 percent during the time period.

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Make It Social: VEVO Sees 600% Increase In Facebook Traffic After Redesign

Yahoo Debuts Axis, Their New (And Impressive) Desktop And Mobile Search Experience

A D M I N — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:38:11 +0000

Late last year, Yahoo filed for a trademark on the phrase “Yahoo Axis.” The filing raised more questions than answers at the time, but after six months Yahoo has finally spilled the proverbial beans — Axis is both a new search-oriented add-on for your web browser, and a new browser app for iOS. Before I talk about what it’s like to actually use Axis, let’s first discuss why the hell they’re doing this in the first place. TechCrunch spoke to Yahoo’s Director of Product Management Ethan Batraski, and he told us his his job has been to figure out what search looks like over the next few years. Yahoo Axis was one of his answers. “No one’s innovated on ‘How do I get rid of the search results page altogether’”, Batraski said. “That is what we want to do.” That’s exactly what they did. Once you download, install, and log into Axis with your Yahoo credentials (you do have Yahoo credentials, don’t you?), a small back bar will begin to live in the bottom left corner of your preferred web browser. Right now Axis plugs into Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer, though Batraski didn’t completely rule out the possibility of Yahoo eventually releasing their own browser should there be enough interest. That little black pill has a search bar nestled in it, and mousing over it causes it stretch across the bottom of your browser window. Actually clicking in the search box and plugging in a search query makes the bar expand to fill roughly the bottom third of your browser window, displaying easily-scannable thumbnails of Yahoo’s search results. Yahoo’s idea here is to give their (or perhaps more accurately, Microsoft’s) search engine its own flexible space to live in outside of the traditional browser paradigm. With Axis installed, users who need to find things online don’t need to tear themselves away from the page they’re currently looking at by navigating to a different page or opening a new tab. There’s no question that it takes a little getting used to — as a longtime Chrome user, it’s become second nature to open a new tab a bang a search query into the address bar — but it’s been very thoughtfully executed. When Axis works (which is most of the time) it works very well. Occasionally, the black search box will fail to close properly, leaving behind a partial remnant of the last search result thumbnail in its place. Perhaps one of the most annoying things about Axis (at least on a Mac) is scrolling horizontally through the thumbnails of search results. Users can click and drag through them with a mouse or hit buttons mounted to the left or right of the results panel, but scrolling side to side with a trackpad can be tricky. It causes the results to move over three results at a time, which sometimes means you miss seeing some results.It’s a relatively minor point of contention (and one that’s probably easy to fix), but still, there you have it. But Axis on the desktop is only one part of the equation — its other half lives on your iPhone (or your iPad). Yahoo has also whipped together a standalone browser app for iOS that seeks to bring that same revamped search experience to the mobile space. This is where Yahoo actually manages to make me swoon a little bit. The iOS app is surprisingly good — it’s more than handsome enough, it runs very smoothly (thanks mostly to its WebKit underpinnings), and your bookmarks sync between devices quickly once you make sure you’re logged in. I’ll also admit right here that I’m a bit of a sucker for their font choices, but let’s not dwell on that. If anything, the big thumbnails for search results play out even better on a small screen. There’s no angling to make sure your finger touches the link just right. That said, I’m not sure it’ll be replacing the stock Browser app for me — what’s great about Axis for the desktop is that it fits into whatever browser you’ve decided you like enough to use. On iOS though, there’s no way to set a default browser so it takes a conscientious effort to use Axis there. For now, the Axis browser app remains an iOS exclusive. It’s not entirely impossible that we’ll see a version make its way onto Android someday, though I imagine Google may not take too kindly to a another search company trying to set foot in their territory. Batraski referred to Axis as an “experiment,” but to my utter pleasure, it’s a pretty damned good one. Is it enough to make a dyed-in-the-wool Googler convert? Probably not, but with nearly 700 million users still using Yahoo, I reckon a solid chunk will find something to enjoy here.

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Yahoo Debuts Axis, Their New (And Impressive) Desktop And Mobile Search Experience

Buyou Is A Free Online Mall Brought Straight To Your iPad

Achilles — Wed, 23 May 2012 03:21:11 +0000

Shopping on the iPad is becoming one of the best ways to shop. You’re sitting on your couch, comfy as a bug in a rug, swiping through dresses, and t-shirts, and shoes! Oh my! But there’s one issue: you have to switch between all the different brand apps to enjoy yourself. Sure, you can hit up the Saks 5th Ave app and view multiple brands at once, but those brands aren’t offering the ability to reach out to you directly with their sales, content, and promotions. But that’s why Buyou, the crowd favorite here at the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley (and thus one of our Battlefield members), has stepped onto the stage with its iPad app. It’s a free online mall that aggregates various brands into one beautiful, easy to use interface. And while it’s great that the app begins learning your taste through your likes and dislikes, it’s even better that it relays that information back to its brand partners. This means that a retailer like Express will begin to learn the clothes you like and more easily target clothing you may enjoy directly to you. Buyou offers up a Featured section, to highlight special products and promotions, as well as a Deal Feed, that throws together all the hottest deals within its retailer network so you can save a buck or two while iPad shopping. You can also shop by category, and save items to a wishlist. Another pain point that Buyou addresses for retailers is their social presence. Retailers often produce a ton of content for Facebook and Twitter, and even though you may follow them, you’ve likely done so to unlock a deal or be a part of a promotion, not to surf through their content on a daily basis. Buyou filters all its retailers’ social media content through the app and presents it in an unobtrusive, thoughtful way. The app is currently live in the App Store with 32 retailers already on the platform, including Express, Bonobos, Gap, Lands’ End, LEGO, Nine West, Oakley, and The Sharper Image. The company is currently working on adding new brands. Click to view slideshow.

RocketFrog Wants To Build The Largest Social Casino On The Web, Myspace Tom Joins As Advisor

vertical8 — Wed, 23 May 2012 03:14:29 +0000

One of the hottest trends in gaming right now isn’t mobile, social, or massively multiplayer games, but online casinos. This may seem somewhat surprising considering that it was only a year ago that the Justice Department seized the domain names of some of the country’s largest online poker platforms, like PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, UB.com, and Absolute Poker, charging their founders with bank fraud, money laundering, illegal gambling, among other offenses. And five years prior, the Unlawful Gambling Act effectively putting a stop to online gambling in the U.S. and sending the market into a tailspin. However, in December, the Justice Department reversed its stance on many forms of online gambling, paving the way for what is becoming a revitalization of the social gambling market. Naturally, with activity in the space increasing, a number of startups have popped up to take advantage, like the rebranded Titan Gaming , for example. Today brings another entrant into the social gambling space with RocketFrog , which is setting out to bring casino entertainment to Facebook with the launch of a free-to-play online casino that offers players the chance to win real prizes. Traditionally, online casino players participate in the casino gaming experience recreationally, with the rewards being the opportunity to socialize with friends or earn a few virtual badges. So, RocketFrog wants to change this by leveraging the Facebook platform — where all of your friends are already — to create social tournaments, where players can interact and compete against their friends to win real prizes, not just accumulate points on leaderboards or vie for status increases. Each day, the startup will run poker, blackjack, and slot tournaments in small-ish fields of 80 to 300 players, with levels lasting two to five minutes. In a somewhat unusual business model, RocketFrog plans to recruit a different advertiser each day to sponsor a variety of prizes, including movie tickets, music, and good, with prizes obviously being related to whatever company happens to be paying for the ads. If it’s Pizza Hut, prizes will likely include coupons, meal offers, and probably some free pepperoni. The platform intends to accomodate gamers of all abilities, so that if a user is new to a game, for example, they can peruse through the startup’s suite of learning tutorials, game strategy articles, and expert tips. Its games also allow players to choose their stakes and limits in an effort to customize the overall gaming experience, while challenging friends, tracking their bank roll, sharing achievements, earning loyalty rewards, and comparing game stats and rankings. RocketFrog was founded in 2010 by Brett Calapp, Matthew Osborn, and Uri Kozai. Calapp is the former CEO and co-founder of Centaurus Games, a subscription-based gaming network that sold to PartyGaming in 2010. The startup’s leadership, along with the potential market opportunity, has attracted a familiar face in social networking. Tom Anderson, also known as the co-founder and former president of Myspace, has joined RocketFrog’s advisory board alongside reality TV star and celebrity poker player Brody Jenner. When asked what he sees as RocketFrog’s core value proposition, the former Myspace president said that few have “really pushed incentive-based gaming on the Facebook platform.” It’s as simple as the fact that millions of people play online poker for free, he says, so if they’re given an engaging platform and gaming experience, why wouldn’t they want to play for realworld prizes? What’s more, “RocketFrog is also giving advertisers what they always want but can’t seem to get — an immersive and deep experience that actually features their brand — banners alone aren’t enough.” CEO Brett Calapp says that, while legislation and regulations will take time to iron themselves out (legislation may not be put in place until next year, or 2014) and casino platforms are popping up by the minute, RocketFrog’s core strategy is to avoid making players feel inferior about their bankroll in order to drive sales of virtual currency, but instead to reward its players by offering them the ability to compete in tournaments for quality, realworld prizes. Rather than relying on a small, obsessive segment of addicted players, Calapp says that RocketFrog wants to expand its community to include new players, those not typically classified as gamblers, but who don’t want to just play for meaningless virtual rewards. RocketFrog has a steep uphill climb to track down the bigs in the space, like DoubleDown Casinos and Zynga’s Texas Hold ‘em, but with some influential advisors and a mission to bring social, tournament-style gamble-gaming to the masses, the startup may just be onto something. For more, check out RocketFrog at home here.

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RocketFrog Wants To Build The Largest Social Casino On The Web, Myspace Tom Joins As Advisor

Betaworks Acquires And Relaunches Hownow, The Semi-Anonymous Hyperlocal Social Network iPhone App

ACMAir — Wed, 23 May 2012 03:09:15 +0000

On one end of the spectrum, networks like Twitter and Facebook have acted as catalysts to organizing events like the Arab Spring or the riots of London. On the other end of that spectrum, networks like Yelp or Foursquare tee up user generated reviews, tips and public-facing profiles. Somewhere in between all that falls hownow, an iPhone app-based social network that lets users publish messages semi-anonymously at a hyperlocal level. At its core, the app allows all those who have downloaded the app to strike up semi-anonymous conversations with others at a “block” level, “Neighborhood” level, “City” level or “Worldwide” level. There is no sign-up process and though users have the option to post anonymously, they also have the option to create a pseudonym if that tickles their fancy. Betaworks says they may implement a “rules of the road” to help users take full advantage of the network at some point down the road. Messages can be left forever, for 30 days, a day or an hour at any level. (Don’t be surprised if you see local businesses take advantage of this.) Photos can also be shared via hownow and users do have the option of linking their Twitter accounts for cross-posting, too. Made popular during the peak of the Occupy Wall Street movement, NY-based Betaworks has since acquired hownow to help bolster and fast track the company’s vision for online identity “and the growing significance and opportunities with mobile services.” The app was refreshed and re-released to the App Store last week with tweaks made under the hood and the inclusion of Google Maps. There are no plans to expand to other platforms in the near future. If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering what sort of user information is stored both locally and afar, right? According to Neil Wehrle, VP of user experience at Betaworks, the only data being stored on Betaworks end includes, “Date, Time, Location, Message Content, and an anonymous ID.” An “anonymous ID key” and a cache of the most recent messages is stored on the user’s device. hownow [App Store]

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Betaworks Acquires And Relaunches Hownow, The Semi-Anonymous Hyperlocal Social Network iPhone App

SocialStock Wants To Turn Social Networking Into Real-World Rewards

jos — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:44:47 +0000

What good is a Foursquare check-in if it doesn’t lead to a coupon or freebie? Why bother tweeting about a brand you like if they don’t acknowledge your undying love and loyalty? With TechCrunch Disrupt finalist SocialStock , those types of actions may now be rewarded…or at least that’s the company’s vision. The service, founded by Subbu Rama, aims to be a stock market for people and places which assigns a point value to users’ social networking actions. Mimicking the framework of a real stock market, those actions become shares and then those shares can turn into real-world rewards from participating business or brands. What’s interesting about the concept behind SocialStock, is that it makes the idea of someone’s social capital – their “worth” in terms of their social networking actions, check-ins, Foursquare mayorships, tweets, etc. – portable. If you lose your Starbucks mayorship after moving away, for example, you could just turn around and buy “shares” of another local coffee shop that doles out rewards. All your hard work in being a loyal coffee-drinking local doesn’t have to go to waste. In addition to earning shares for your activity, users are assigned a share value of their own, too. The system is based on someone’s social capital, which is determined using algorithms that measure things like the number of friends and followers you have, your history of check-ins, as well as the influence and importance of those who you’re connected to. It’s a bit of a simpler computation than Klout’s Kscore , perhaps, which measures your reach and influence in more sophisticated ways, but then again, it’s a different system than Klout, too. Instead of handing out special “perks” only to those who have mastered gathering “influence,” SocialStock has users building up their virtual shares through their actions – a tweet, a Facebook post, or a check-in as related to a business or venue. Further down the road, other actions will be rewarded, too, like a Yelp review or even an Instagram photo. By aggregating the actions, businesses and brands would have better insight into who their most loyal customers really are. In other words, SocialStock is taking a more holistic view of the social networking ecosystem. There aren’t any launch partners teamed up with SocialStock for today’s debut – only the framework itself is going live. But, if the concept proves successful, participating brands could use the system to set the conversion rate on translating these stock market-like “shares” to real-world rewards. For example, 1,000 shares could be exchanged for a free latte or a free meal. And then, to earn the same reward again, the customer would have to remain loyal by tweeting, Facebooking and checking in some more. Based in Sunnyvale, SocialStock is basically in bootstrapping mode with under $100,000 in funding from a few friends. The website is launching today as is the mobile app, which lets you discover people and places nearby that have spikes in social activity. Disrupt Q&A Judges: Michael Abbott (KPCB), Soraya Darabi (Foodspotting), Patrick Gallagher (CrunchFund) & Charlie O’Donnell (Brooklyn Bridge Ventures) (Note that the questions reflect a somewhat confusing pitch) Q: Not sure I understand, is this loyalty thing? Why not pull up my Klout score? Who’s the target? A: If you move from NY to somewhere else, you lose your social capital. With Social Stock, you can transfer the social stock to the new place. Q: But aren’t you worth less because you can bring less people to that shop? A: More about your importance – it’s a bet on that person. Q: Do I get social capital dollars when I sign in? A: Everyone gets capital based on their influence on Twitter/Foursquare, etc. Buying and selling like stock market. Q: How are you picking social networks/how algorithm works? A: If person has a lot of activity on Facebook, their value is higher. On Twitter, it looks at followers. Existing social graph + frequency of visits to shops. Q: What’s the core reason for product? A: Goal is take social capital and make it a platform.

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SocialStock Wants To Turn Social Networking Into Real-World Rewards

Hmmm Is A Split-Personality Social Network For Sharing Different Yous To Different Facebook Friends

Administrator — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:43:06 +0000

You’re crazy with your friends, serious with your co-workers, and sweet with your parents. Now you can share those distinct personalities with their matching audiences thanks to Hmmm , a mobile app launching today that aims to let you be yourself online, whoever that is. Facebook friend lists and Google Circles have proven too clumsy for selective sharing. They’ve led to the rise of Path, which eliminates the decision making by creating a social micronetwork of your closest friends, but all your favorite people aren’t there, and not every post is appropriate for everyone you love. Hmmm lets you create separate avatars for each of your identities, and publish to pre-made sets of Hmmm and Facebook friends. Plus, Hmmm will soon be able to notify a friend that says they’re bored when you post that you want to see a movie. Sol Studios just launched Hmmm at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, with an iOS app available now and an Android version coming in two weeks. Hmmm’s co-founder Archana Patchirajan tells me “I’m a daughter, I’m a student, I’m a co-founder. We all have nicknames and social groups. It’s unrealistic to have one profile. We wanted to give users a flexible platform to express themselves the way the do in real life.” Hmmm doesn’t just structure who you share to, but what you share as well. There’s categories like activities, emotions, places, music, and photos, but also tags like “happy” or “inspired” for emotions, or “working” or “celebrating” for activities. The next version of Hmmm will include its “inference engine” that can match people with complementary posts. Like two people who are shopping nearby each other, or someone doing something exciting with someone bored. You can also use Hmmm as a layer on top of Facebook. The app creates feeds of posts by Facebook and Hmmm friends of your avatars. You can like and comment from within Hmmm and that feedback will appear back on Facebook. The bootstrapped Sol Studios plans to monetize Hmmm with Sponsored Stories-style social ads, where small businesses, record companies, and consumer packaged goods companies pay to increase the presence of posts that mention them. It originally considered sponsored gamification, but I persuaded the team that would clutter the app and make it confusing, so they stripped it out. In the Disrupt Battlefield Q&A, Patchirajan explained that Hmmm won’t limit the number of connections you can have, the way Path caps you at 150. She said Hmmm would succeed because competitors’ approaches to micro-sharing are “very unnatural. Finally, she explained the confusing name of her product as…the sound you make when you’re confused who to say something with. Hmmm’s biggest challenge will be convincing users to endure the friction of choosing an audience, content type, and sub-tags just to publish something to friends. Path’s near decision-less publishing is a pleasure and I fear Hmmm could be a pain. But those who want to share their split-personality but are serious about privacy should give Hmmm some thought.

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Hmmm Is A Split-Personality Social Network For Sharing Different Yous To Different Facebook Friends

Startup Alley Day 2 — It’s A Jungle Out There, But The Startups Keep Coming

admin2 — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:35:30 +0000

Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt makes for a pretty grueling experience when so many companies are pitching every passer-by. But Jordan Crook and I went in feet first to check out some of the startups there. In scenes more reminiscent of tag-team pro-wrestling, or perhaps a sort of Startup relay race, we tag-teamed around and interviewed a bunch of them including Jaxx, Screach, Fanitics, Edaman, SnapCrowd, ColourDNA, Atticous and BuzzCard. Check all of Tuesday’s startups out here . We also took a trip over to the Israeli Pavilion to check out the likes of Drippler and Vodio among others. Enjoy!

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Startup Alley Day 2 — It’s A Jungle Out There, But The Startups Keep Coming

SAP To Acquire Ariba For $4.3 Billion

jos — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:08:31 +0000

Business software giant SAP announced today that it will acquire Ariba’s cloud -based business commerce network for approximately $4.3 billion. SAP’s subsidiary, SAP America, Inc., is offering $45 per share for the platform, and plans to close the deal during the third quarter, pending Ariba shareholder approval of the sale. Ariba had 100.2 million shares on the market, as of March 31st, according to an AP report citing FactSet data. The Ariba board of directors has already unanimously approved the transaction. The per share purchase price represents a 20% premium over the May 21 closing price and a 19% premium over the one month volume weighted average price per share, says SAP. The deal will be funded from SAP’s free cash and a €2.4 billion term loan facility and is expected to be accretive to SAP’s non-IFRS earnings per share in 2013. SAP says the acquisition will combine Ariba’s successful buyer-seller collaboration network with SAP’s own customer base and solutions in order to create new models for business-to-business collaboration in the cloud. Sunnyvale-based Ariba has approximately 2,600 employees, $444 million in total revenue, and experienced 38.5 percent annual growth in 2011. Its business network recorded 62 percent organic growth in the same period. With the addition of Ariba, SAP will acquire the leader in cloud-based collaborative business commerce. The focus of Ariba’s business is in procurement, spend management, and supplier discovery, and is partnered with major ERP suppliers, including SAP, as well as Salesforce, IBM and Oracle. “The cloud has profoundly changed the way people interact. The impact will be even greater as enterprises connect and collaborate in new ways with their global networks of customers and partners,” SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe said in a statement . “Cloud-based collaboration is redefining business network innovation, and we are catching this wave in the early stage of its evolution. The addition of Ariba will create the business network of the future, deliver immediate value to our customers and provide another solid engine for driving SAP’s growth in the cloud.”

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SAP To Acquire Ariba For $4.3 Billion

Betaworks’ John Borthwick: VC Scene in NYC is “Pretty Busy” Right Now, But Not “Overheated” Like San Francisco

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:53:51 +0000

Betaworks ‘ CEO John Borthwick took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York with Crunchfund’s MG Siegler this morning to discuss Betaworks’ investments and the state of the investment business in San Francisco and New York in general. Betaworks, the New York-based company behind popular services like bitly, Chartbeat and SocialFlow has also made a number of investments in other startups, including Tumblr, Kickstarter and the recent Zynga acquisition OMGPOP. As for the difference between the state of the venture capital scene in New York and San Francisco, Borthwick noted that he thinks things are pretty busy in New York right now, but that the market is not overheated in the same way the San Francisco market is at the moment. While the easy availability of capital drove a lot of lazy entrepreneurship in the tech bubble of the late 1990s, he noted that he is not quite seeing this yet. “We still have so much stuff to build,” Borthwick said, so he doesn’t think the innovation curve the recent crop of good startups is building upon will flatten out anytime soon. “We are just at the beginning of this,” he said. In terms of humanizing digital experiences, he noted, a lot still remains to be done. He did, however, wonder if the Facebook IPO won’t take at least some of the air out of the startup scene on the West Coast. Talking about the difference between the East Coast and West Coast, Borthwick argued that the two scenes are probably quite complementary in the end, especially thanks to the media focus in the New York scene and the different skill sets on both coasts. The line between technology and media, though, he said, “is becoming gray.” Asked about Fictive Kin , the Brooklyn-based design collective that is one of Betaworks’ latest investments, Borthwick noted that this is a pretty novel concept for Betaworks and different from its other investments. Over the next two years, Betaworks will essentially get the right of first refusal for all products that come out of Fictive Kin. Borthwick described this deal as a way to expand the Betaworks brand. Our own Kim-Mai Cutler took a closer look at this deal last week . The discussion also touched upon Betaworks’ investment in OMGPOP, which was recently acquired by Zynga. The story of OMGPOP and how it really wasn’t doing so well before it hit upon Draw Something is relatively well known and as Borthwick noted, “prior the launch of Draw Something, the company wasn’t going anywhere fast.” One thing that’s happening now, though, he noted, is that the infrastructure is in place to have these things take off very fast.”

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Betaworks’ John Borthwick: VC Scene in NYC is “Pretty Busy” Right Now, But Not “Overheated” Like San Francisco