The Latest from TechCrunch
The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- The Disrupt Hackathon Movie (And Slideshow) TCTV
- From Accelerate 2010 In Singapore: List Of “Asia’s Top 50 Apps”
- Like The Ping Sidebar, iLike Founder Hopes Apple Copies Mission Of Helping Small Artists
- An Illustrated Slice Of TC Disrupt Hackathon Life
- NSFW: TechCrunch Disrupt: The Drinking Game
- Students: You Are Probably Not Mark Zuckerberg, So Stay In School
- Why Did VideoEgg Buy Six Apart? To Create A New Modern Media Empire, Says CEO
- “Bom Sabado” Worm Hits Google’s Orkut
- Ping Now Works With Your Actual iTunes Library. This Is A Thousand Times Better
- OMG/JK: Because You’ve Always Wanted A Phone That Doesn’t Officially Exist
| The Disrupt Hackathon Movie (And Slideshow) TCTV Posted: 26 Sep 2010 07:56 AM PDT
With less than 4 hours until show time, the programmers, designers and entrepreneurs have been slaving away (or at least that’s the expectation) all night to make something stage-worthy and coherent. Starting at Sunday 11:00am EST, you can watch the frenzy as the teams deliver 60-second presentations in rapid-fire succession to our panel of expert judges. However, before we hurtle to the triumphant, disoriented end, let’s savor the blood, sweat and Redbull: please enjoy this trailer (sorry, I didn’t have time to find a creepy soundtrack). See video above. Still hungry for Disrupt Hackathon action? Check out TechCrunch reader Alexa Lee’s Flickr account for recent footage. Below are a few of my favorite shots: Thanks to TC TV’s John Murillo for his wonderful camera work here.        
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| From Accelerate 2010 In Singapore: List Of “Asia’s Top 50 Apps” Posted: 26 Sep 2010 07:03 AM PDT
What’s Asia’s Top 50 Apps? SingTel, in cooperation with e27 and others, called out for users to nominate and vote for web and mobile applications that were either developed in Asia or mainly target Asian markets. A total of 50 apps from the region made it to that list (out of 200 nominations), and during Accelerate, a panel of judges selected “Asia’s Top 10 Apps” (which won a three months of rent-free stay at Plug and Play Center, among other things). But here are thumbnail sketches (of varying depth) of all 50 Asian mobile apps and web services, starting with the top 10 and in no particular order (luckily, almost all products listed up below are available in English). Asia’s Top 50 Apps at Accelerate 2010: The top 10
Stictok (Korea) Asia’s Top 50 Apps at Accelerate 2010: The best of the restHere’s an overview of the 40 other apps and services that were shortlisted but didn’t make the cut. Almost all of these are available in English, so it’s easy to give them a spin. From Singapore:
From India:
From the Philippines:
From Malaysia:
From Indonesia:
From Japan:
From Hong Kong:
From Pakistan:
From South Korea:
From the US:
       
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| Like The Ping Sidebar, iLike Founder Hopes Apple Copies Mission Of Helping Small Artists Posted: 25 Sep 2010 10:15 PM PDT
“I just hope Apple also copies iLike’s mission of democratizing music by empowering artists, especially the little guys. With Ping’s restrictions so far on artist signup, the major labels are the winners, not artists, and that breaks my heart,” Partovi told us today when asked about Ping’s newest feature. For all the criticisms of Ping so far, this is one of the most troubling. The service is dominated by big-name artists from huge labels. That’s finally starting to change, but slowly. When I talked to Apple about the issue around the time that Ping launched, the acknowledged that it might be a while before they had a system in place to make it easy for all artists to use Ping to connect with fans. But they were working on it, they said. Partovi, who has since left iLike following the acquisition by MySpace, clearly wants to get in the “we were there first” jab, but also definitely cares about these smaller artists who are being largely overlooked so far with Ping. Regardless of features, hopefully Apple does copy that.
       
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| An Illustrated Slice Of TC Disrupt Hackathon Life Posted: 25 Sep 2010 09:22 PM PDT
Pizza has just arrived for the second time (!) here at the TC Disrupt Hackathon in the San Francisco Design Center Concourse and it’s finally cooled down after one of the hottest days we’ve experienced in San Francisco in awhile. I’ve been here for about seven hours and met some great and incredibly nerdy folks. Some of us are working hard, some of us are hardly working and some of us are already asleep at 8:00 PM PST (luckily AirBnb has provided an air mattress for those brave enough to crash in front of hundreds of people). Around 400 people coders and fans of coders have shown up for TechCrunch’s Hackathon and it seems as though a good proportion have come ready to stare at their computer screens and eat carbs for about 24 hours. Aside from pizza, there’s lots of Red Bull and Diet Coke, or as I like to call it, cold carbonated coffee. While roaming around taking pics I’ve met a slew of Groupon clones, Andrew Le Blanc, who is making an “engine to be able to see evolution happening in realtime,” Endorsey, a team working on a shopping recommendation for friends, a group working on “Pitch Hero,” a platform that allows you to get realtime feedback on your presentations, a guy building a “StumbleUpon for your Twitter stream,” and so on and so forth. TC Disrupt NY Hackathon darlings Groupme are here, sitting coding away on live size bags of Pop Chips. NYC Disrupt alums Flymodo, an app that allows you to track flights via Twitter, are also roaming the premises and were lucky enough to catch the ear of Mike Arrington himself. Meanwhile there’s a guy making iPad paintings, and a team (Urbanspoils) working entirely on an idea suggested by our very own Erick Schonfeld early on in the Hackathon, a product that offers secret Groupons, available only to people who check certain venues in on Foursquare. iPhone snapshots of some of my favorite moments, below.
       
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| NSFW: TechCrunch Disrupt: The Drinking Game Posted: 25 Sep 2010 07:57 PM PDT
For those of you who missed the inaugural Disrupt, held in New York back in May, the event is a mash-up of two formats: a start-up competition where 24 as-yet-unlaunched businesses compete for $50,000 and But what for the paupers amongst you, who simply can't scrape together the measly three grand required for a ticket? Frankly, if it were up to me, I’d say tough luck. It’s bad enough that we’re allowing women in for the first time this year, without also admitting the poor. But Heather and Mike are more charitable than I, and in the interests of "inclusiveness" they've tried to throw open the doors to as many of you as possible. Early bird tickets were offered right up until the end of last week (TechCrunch Disrupt 2: Worms For Everyone!); there were free tickets for volunteers (allowing students to get involved with the conference on the same basis that I allow Mexicans to get involved with cleaning my pool) and there was even a giveaway of tickets to the most deserving cases (the winner was a fellow who chopped off one of his own legs and uploaded a photo of the bloody stump to Flickr. Kudos, self-hobbling man, kudos.). And yet, whether through poverty, geography or judicial decree, some of you will still be unable to attend in person. But fret not! Heather and Mike's generosity extends to you too: the entire conference will be shown live on "The Internet", including all of the panels, the Startup Battlefield, the lunch breaks, and even the awkward moment at the after-party where two super-angels are caught passionately colluding in a bathroom stall. Furthermore, Mike has bribed convinced me to return to Twitter – for three days only – to describe the event through 140-character updates. I'm hosting the Startup Battlefield so, as I encourage the audience to cheer wildly for the founders of 'Cupstr', you can check @paulatdisrupt for my true feelings about the start-up that promises to disrupt the five million dollar cupcake industry. Lastly, but by no means leastly, long-time readers might recall that at TechCrunch 50 I created the TC50 Drinking Game, with participants encouraged to get increasingly wasted as panelists and entrepreneurs mentioned certain trigger phrases. At Disrupt New York I was too busy running TechCrunch TV to host a proper re-run of the game – but now that I’ve been booted from that particular gig it’s back with a vengeance! The fun kicks off on Monday at 9am, and you're welcome to play along no matter if you're in the conference hall or watching at home. The rules are simple: line your stomach with a hearty breakfast, grab a bottle of something strong and follow these instructions…
See you all on Monday! And remember: always drink disruptively.        
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| Students: You Are Probably Not Mark Zuckerberg, So Stay In School Posted: 25 Sep 2010 05:08 PM PDT
At the UC-Berkeley Distinguished Innovator Lecture Series, last week, Mike and I discussed a variety of topics. We agreed on most subjects—except on the importance of education (and dearth of women in tech—which is a battle I'll fight another day). When I brought up my TechCrunch post on the importance of MBA degrees, Arrington questioned why students needed to get any degree or go to college at all. He talked up the success of tech CEOs who had dropped out of college—Zuckerberg, Gates, and "countless high-profile entrepreneurs including Larry and Sergey" (Mike: Larry and Sergey both have undergraduate degrees and were completing PhD's). Despite being interrupted by Berkeley professor Ikhlaq Sidhu (who I was afraid would come on stage and strangle Mike before he could finish his sentence), Arrington said that he didn't learn much from college; gaining admittance to a Berkeley or Harvard is the only certification a student needs; dropping out from college doesn't carry a stigma anymore; so "the best thing in the world is to go to Harvard for a year and drop out because everyone knows you were smart enough to get in". Arrington told students that the kind of person who wants to increase his chances of success by getting a masters degree isn't an entrepreneur; older entrepreneurs have no chance of raising money (so they're a lost cause); success means building a billion dollar business and making a lot of money—it's not good enough to build a good lifestyle business that pays the bills and brings you happiness. So they should "ready-fire-aim" and go for the big prize rather than thinking small. Here is the problem with Arrington's logic: students may come up with great ideas and start a company, but they aren't going to be able make it big unless they have the educational foundation. Maybe Zuckerberg lucked out by being at the right place at the right time, but he wasn't born with the knowledge of how to grow a business. To build a business, you need to understand subjects like finance, marketing, intellectual property and corporate law. Until you have been in the business world for a while, you don't know how to negotiate contracts, deal with people, manage and nurture employees, and sell to customers. Most importantly, if students don't learn the importance of finishing what they start, they will never achieve success—this requires perseverance and determination. And by dropping out of college, they won't have the alumni networks that they need to help them later in their careers and in business. The harsh reality is that for every Zuckerberg, there are a thousand who drop out of college and fail. Many get discouraged after their failures and move to other professions which require less skill and education. Some universities do readmit students who dropped out for a short period of time, but most students end up burning through their savings and loans from friends and relatives, and can no longer afford their education. Some give up and look for jobs in big companies, but big companies don't generally hire people without degrees—because they want employees who have the discipline to finish what they start; who won't jump ship and chase every rainbow. Plus, if you look at the backgrounds of the people who actually built Facebook—the executives and employees of the company—you'll find that they aren't college dropouts; they are highly educated. Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple—all started by college dropouts are the most selective in hiring; they are the most fussy about degrees. My advice to students is to get all the education they can, while they can. Complete at least a bachelors and get a masters degree if you can. The degree doesn't have to be from an elite college like Harvard or Stanford; any education will carry you far. After you graduate, you should gain some practical work experience and learn the realities of the business world before making the plunge into entrepreneurship. Work for a big company for a few years; learn about how the corporate world works; get good at people management, project planning, and teamwork. Then join a startup—which will probably fail as most startups do. But you get to fail on someone else's dime and learn all the valuable lessons. In his talk, Mike Arrington said that he got little from his education. He also said that he wished he had gotten an MBA instead of a law degree. But what Mike didn't seem to acknowledge was that he needed the law degree to become a lawyer; when he was a lawyer, he gained an in-depth knowledge about the tech world and its problems —which led to his startups; and this education gave him the knowledge to take on unethical companies and question unethical practices—all of which have helped make TechCrunch the world's leading tech blog. Does anyone think that Mike would have been able to build TechCrunch if he was a college dropout? In our discussion, Mike joked that instead of doing the law degree, he wishes he had learned to play the guitar in junior high—"maybe he would have become a rock star". I have no idea if Mike has any musical talent, but a smaller proportion of guitarists become rock stars than techies who become CEOs. Editor's note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa        
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| Why Did VideoEgg Buy Six Apart? To Create A New Modern Media Empire, Says CEO Posted: 25 Sep 2010 03:47 PM PDT “The rules of media have completely been broken,” according to Say Media CEO Matt Sanchez. Because we’re no longer living in a world where print media is sold on a newstand and video media is only presented through cable television, everything is changing. And as old companies have to adopt to that change, there are opportunities for new empires to sprout up. And that’s exactly what Say Media is going for — and that’s why VideoEgg bought Six Apart last week, forming this new company. I sat down with Sanchez the day after the deal was disclosed (we first broke the news of the deal the day before it happened) to get his take on why such a deal makes sense and what it means going forward. Launched in 2001, Six Apart has been a vital player in the democratization of news and the rise of blogging. Over the years, it had built up a passionate user base, and some of those people are still unclear why what was essentially an advertising network would want to buy the company. Again, the answer is to expand into more than just advertising — to get fully into content as well. Six Apart’s MoveableType and TypePad products are a part of the plan and they will remain intact. It’s about creating a new modern media company, as Sanchez puts it. Watch above for Sanchez’s thoughts about all of this.        
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| “Bom Sabado” Worm Hits Google’s Orkut Posted: 25 Sep 2010 03:37 PM PDT
As Orkut currently has over 52 million active users worldwide and over 34 billion pageviews each month it’s no surprise that “Bom Sabado” (“Good Saturday”) is currently trending on Google. While neither Google or Orkut has responded to our inquiries on the extent of the virus or whether it is still happening, we’re hearing that the Orkut security team is trying to resolve the issue, and the best way currently to avoid the bug is to avoid Orkut entirely according to power user ghafoortabish who explains how to avoid the virus.
Thanks: Comptalks        
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| Ping Now Works With Your Actual iTunes Library. This Is A Thousand Times Better Posted: 25 Sep 2010 02:05 PM PDT
It launched with much fanfare, but I don’t think it was unreasonable to call Ping a dud out of the gate. While pretty much everyone initially signed up to try it out, a few days later, the activity stream seemed to trickle to almost nothing. And there was a good reason for that: Apple’s social network for music made it very hard to share stuff — you know, be social. But an update today makes it at least a thousand times better. iTunes 10.0.1 released this morning brings some big Ping updates with it. Most notably, you can now use Ping with your own iTunes library. Previously, you could only share songs on Ping through the iTunes Store — a big difference. This basically meant that even if you already owned a song, you had to hunt it down in the iTunes Store to share it. This was almost laughably tedious, and it ensured that no one would use Ping for more than a couple days. But now when you load this iTunes, you’ll see a Ping button next to every song you own when it’s highlighted in your library. Clicking this button reveals a drop down menu which gives you the option to Like a song, Post a song (put it in your Ping stream with a note), or see that artist’s profile on Ping. From this menu you also have the option to find the artist, song, album, or genre in the iTunes Store. (Or you can right-click on any song to see all of these options outside of the drop down.) If you use the Ping options in this drop down, you can socially share any track you’re actually listening to with the click of a button and it will appear in your Ping stream for all your friends to see. Again, a thousand times better. The iTunes update also brings a new Ping sidebar which also gives you the option to Like or Post any song you have highlighted from your actual library. Below that, you’ll see your Ping stream with all the social activity from your Ping friends. From this sidebar, you can Like or comment on any item in the stream. For the third time, a thousand times better.
So is Ping perfect now? Of course not. There is still a ways to go as a social network. But the first release was laughably anti-social as most people spend time in iTunes listening to music they already own and not shopping for new music — or trying to find music they already own to share it via some convoluted method. Apple has fixed that. The next step is for Apple to integrate with the broader social networks — Facebook and Twitter (beyond their current lame way of connecting) — to make their music social network truly viral. 160 million people already have access to iTunes Ping, but it’s still siloed within iTunes. Apple undoubtedly likes that because, well, they like their walled gardens. And it makes any potential shopping experience seamless. But if Ping is going to be a success, they need to get these Ping Likes flowing into Facebook and Twitter too. As we’re all aware, Facebook doesn’t have a music feature — this could be Facebook’s music feature. It could be awesome. Of course, the two sides need to figure out their relationship. Apple also needs to tweak iOS a bit now to get it up to speed with these changes. While the Ping experience through iTunes on iOS was already far superior than on the desktop, they should have a button to Like or Share a song from the music player on iOS devices too. That way, if you’re listening to a song you own and you like it, it’s one click to share. It would also be great if iTunes kept track of the music you actually listen to (like plug-ins by Last.fm and other do) and give you the option to share this data. That way, you don’t have to explicitly share all the time if you don’t want to. And yes, the new Ping still has some social issues with tracks not sold through iTunes — as in, you can’t share those because they don’t exist in Apple’s database. But considering how big the library of tracks they do have is, that’s a relatively minor issue (aside from The Beatles, of course). Today’s update is a solid first step to revive Ping from its early grave.
       
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| OMG/JK: Because You’ve Always Wanted A Phone That Doesn’t Officially Exist Posted: 25 Sep 2010 01:37 PM PDT There are fewer than 48 hours to go before TechCrunch Disrupt kicks off, and we know you’re all aching to see some of the industry’s best investors, entrepreneurs and startups take the stage. We’ve got a little something to tide you over though the home stretch: yep, it’s the latest episode of OMG/JK. This week fellow TechCrunch writer MG Siegler and I talk about the elusive (but totally real) Facebook phone, the reintroduction of Google Voice onto the Apple App Store, and the revamped #NewTwitter. We also briefly touch on Yahoo’s roadmap, only to realize that we still don’t have a clue what they’re up to. Here are some relevant posts covering the topics we talk about:
       
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Flutterscape
Zopim
Gantibaju
buUuk
mig33
Creately
TwitCasting Live
ShowNearby
If the new Ping sidebar that was 
In a little over 24 hours, the sun will rise on the second TechCrunch Disrupt conference, brilliantly titled “
Instead of another boring lecture, last week my students at UC-Berkeley got quite a treat: a lively discussion with TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington. I once described Mike as a cross between Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern; so I was ready for a little controversy. But he ended up lighting such a big fire, that I've been bombarded with questions from students about their education and careers. The questions aren't just coming from Berkeley; after the discussion was 
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