Ajax Girl

At Supernova’s 2007 Connected Innovators session, 12 young startups (well, 13 if you count the fake one planted to keep the audience on their toes), pitched their products to an audience at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco with punditry by Kevin Werbach and Michael Arrington and supporting color from Josh Kopelman, Julia Hanna Farris and Paul Kedrosky. Here’s a look at the 13 companies:

adap.tv	AdaptiveBlue	Aggregate Knowledge
CastTV	Critical Metrics	Jangl
Pando Networks	SodaHead	Spock
Wize	ZapMeals	ZenZui
	Zing

Adap.tv - They’re like adsense for video, tying contextual text ads based on the content of a video. When videos play, Adap.tv digs up relevant Amazon products and Looksmart ads to populate an ad bar on the bottom of the video at key moments. They use tags and other meta data, as well as speech to text translations to find out what the video is about.

AdaptiveBlue - Makers of the Blue Organizer, a Firefox bookmarking and tagging add-on that parses web pages, adding contextual information where appropriate. For instance, if you go to a web page about a band, Blue Organizer’s right-click menu will show you more info about the band drawn from sites like Odeo or Wikipedia. The plugin also has smart links that let you easily push the link to services like Digg or LibraryThing. More coverage of the recent feature additions here.

Aggregate Knowledge - One of the more established companies at the event, they work with online commerce sites to provide personalized recommendations by looking at user’s collective behavior. They just closed a large round of financing and are rumored to be profitable after a little over a year in operation.

CastTV - A video search engine that pieces together context for a video based on it’s metadata, the content surrounding it, and the content of pages linking to the video. The service performed well in our earlier review. They recently raised a $3.1 million round of financing from DFJ.

Critical Metrics - A music recommendation service that aggregates music reviews from around the web. Each song includes an audio and optional Youtube sample and purchasing options from services like Yahoo Music, iTunes, or Rhapsody.

Jangl - They specialize in anonymous phone communication. A Jangl is a real phone number lets people call you with knowing your real number. The first time someone calls you they have to leave a message and request permission to connect to you directly. You can ban a number at any time as well. They just recently launched a service that lets you generate a Jangl number for any email address and leave a voicemail for that user and number for a callback. Calls are served over a VOIP bridge, so it also makes long distance calls cheaper.

Pando Networks - Desktop peer to peer file sharing service Pando speeds up file transfers by torrenting files and buffering them over their higher speed network of servers. At Supernova they’ve announced their Pando Publishing Platform that lets users easily publish to the web with the cost savings of peer to peer. The platform gives publishers the benefits of P2P video streaming amongst their users and CDN peering service. P2P streaming lets users view video incrementally instead of after a lengthy download. Their CDN peering service will let turn a regular CDN server into a supernode that will save on bandwidth by balancing load between users and the main servers. They’ve already lined up content partners NextNewNetworks, Blip.tv, and Rever.

SodaHead - A polling destination site that lets users poll their friends, SodaHead experts, or strangers. Polls are embeddable widgets that can be voted on at the destination site or any page featuring the code. Polls also feature comments so users can express opinions that don’t fit into any of the options.

Spock - A people search engine that automatically aggregates information linked to a person along with support for updating contacts.

Wize - Wize is a site that tracks expert and user product reviews across the Internet and churns them through an algorithm to create a single, 1-100 “WizeRank.” Earlier this year they got a $4 million round. We have a review of other review services here.

ZapMeals - Adding a little levity to the event, Zapmeals is a startup spoof that aims to be a marketplace for meals, hooking up hungry stomachs with nearby home cooked meals or caterers. You choose your cook based on a member rating system and their fleet of couriers would deliver the meals to your home.

ZenZui - A new way of surfing the web on your mobile phone browser, Zenzui economizes on your phone’s screen space by displaying sites and services as icons on a grid display. You can scan the 36 slot grid using your numbered keypad and zoom in for more detail on a specific service. We covered their launch here.

Zing - Zing enables mobile music players to connect to music libraries over WiFi. They’re currently powering the SanDisk devices for Yahoo Music and Pandora.
You can see a Wink powered group for the event here.

The 12 real start-ups were hand-chosen from more than 130 applications. StumbleUpon, one of the 2006 Connected Innovators, has already enjoyed great success as a newly acquired eBay business. We have high hopes for more great success stories from this year’s crop of Connected Innovators.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/128538797/

Web based instant messaging provider Meebo has launched “Meebo Rooms, Partner Edition”, a more corporate friendly version of Meebo Rooms.

Meebo Rooms launched in May and allows users to chat while viewing media live with instant messaging contacts, both from meebo.com and from their own sites. Over 75,000 Meebo Rooms have been created to date. The new Partners Edition offers extra functionality, including brand customization and Flash skinning, automated capacity spillover, advertising tracking, traffic and data reporting and integration with each partners’ existing registration system.

The list of initial partners for Meebo Rooms Partner Edition is quite amazing. Launch partners include: inAmie Street, BuddyLube, Capitol Records, Columbia Records, Fearless Records, Flyer Records, Hollywood Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, iSound, Jive Records, MOG, Nettwerk Music Group, Radio One, Inc., RockYou, The Hype Machine, Universal Motown/Universal Republic, VH1, VIBE Magazine, Vice Magazine’s VBS.tv, and Virgin Records. Artists involved in the launch include A Fine Frenzy, Aly and Aj, Alpha Rev, HellYeah, Jason Fox, Jenny Owen Youngs, Kelly Rowland, Korn, Lil Mama, Matt Wertz, MIMS, Mudvayne, Portugal the Man, Saosin, Straylight Run, and T-Pain. The artist list is just the launch list, additional artists’ rooms will be built in the coming weeks.

The transformation of Meebo from a popular web based instant messaging company to platform provider has been nothing short of remarkable. Silicon Valley based Meebo has previously raised $12.5 million over two rounds of financing from Sequoia and Draper Fisher Jurvetson; today’s announcement would seem to demonstrate once again that they are getting strong results from their investment. Meebo Rooms Partner Edition will take a cool product from Meebo to an even broader audience.

Previous TechCrunch coverage here.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/128521149/

There have been rumors that Digg’s Kevin Rose has been working on a new startup for some time, but he wasn’t talking. I spent a good amount of time this last weekend at FOO Camp trying to get some of the details out of him, but all he would say is that he’d be contacting us soon.

Today he’s made a bit of a public announcement about the project. It’s called Pownce, and he wrote about it a bit on his tumblr blog. The founding team of the company also includes Leah Culver, Daniel Burka, and Shawn Allen.

Pownce looks to be a web based sharing network with an optional desktop client (built on Adobe Air) for advanced features. Without having had the opportunity to test it, it looks to be overlapping with AllPeers and Pando, and possibly others. It also clearly has basic social networking features - see Rose’s profile page for the service here.

Right now, there are four basic things you can send: messages, links, files, and events.

You might send an event out to a dozen of your friends letting them know you’re hosting a party this Friday. They could easily get the event details you entered, respond with questions or comments and then quickly rsvp.

Say you had a great photo you wanted to share with all of your friends. Just add the file and all of your friends will get it right away. They’ll be able to reply and tell you if it’s cool. You could even post songs you recorded in your home studio to share with your friends.

It’s in private beta currently, but you can request an invitation on the home page.

Kevin’s been on a bit of a roll lately. Digg continues to grow, and his other startup, Revision3, just raised another round of financing.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/128438033/

Last night we pushed a new feature for Highrise called the List view. The List view is a condensed view of the Dashboard, people pages, company pages, and cases. It looks like this:

For this design decisions post, I want to focus on one small detail that we believe makes a big difference.

Below the each note or email you’ll see “Posted by…” or “Sent by…” attribution lines. Originally we had that text in a dark grey (#666):

We didn’t think it was easy enough to spot the name so we tried a lighter grey (#999):

Now it’s too light. We tried a variety of colors and shades of grey, but they were either too close to black, too close to white, or they stood out too much.

Then I went back to a technique I used to use way back in the days of designing UIs for FileMaker Pro databases: Use a light golden color. Internally we call this an “uncolor.” It’s barely a color, but it’s not a shade of grey. Here’s what it looks like:

The light gold stands out just enough without standing out too much. It’s a color that’s not colorful. It’s subtle, but we believe it does the job well.

This “Posted by…” information isn’t as important as the primary content so it doesn’t need to pop, but it should be easy to spot if you’re curious. By focusing on a tonal value other than grey, you can quickly pick out these attribution lines from among the black text. It provides another layer of detail without clutter or camouflage.

We hope you like the little details as much as we do.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/493-design-decisions-highrise-list-view-and-the-uncolor

A couple of Lil’ 37signals fave authors while growing up…

Crockett Johnson:

Richard Scarry:

Who was your fave author when you were a youngin’? Link it up.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/490-link-it-up-childrens-book-authors

ElectionVine is a new service being launched today by NewsVine that allows users to embed a US Presidential candidate poll on their sites.

NewsVine sees ElectionVine as their answer to mainstream media’s traditional polling methods, turning the tradition polling model on its head by delivering a distributed polling system that can be used by blog/site owners across the United States. Anyone can hold their own election on their own site and even go as far as endorsing a candidate. The site-specific results show what percentage of each sites readers are Democrats, Republicans, or backers of a certain candidate.

The strength of the application comes with an aggregate view of how the election is shaping up in the eyes of the distributed blogosphere. With several months to go before the primaries, NewsVine expects to have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of these independent polling places throughout the web.

What better way to test the system then to embed it in this post. Let us know (anonymously) which candidate you’re supporting by participating in the first ever TechCrunch Presidential Poll; polling widget to the right.

Overall ElectionVine is a clever implementation of widgets that is bound to find an appreciative audience amongst American bloggers.

For related news, see our coverage of MySpace’s plans to hold their own presidential primary in early 2008.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/128403600/

The Wii is beating the PS3 and Xbox 360 to pulps in the market place. In May, they sold 338K units — more than Sony (82K) and MS (155K) could manage together. In Japan it’s even more dominating, selling 5:1 against the PS3.

And while both of the super-advanced consoles from competitors are losing money for each unit handed over the counter, Nintendo is making a killing. As a result, the company’s market cap has peaked higher than Sony.

What a wonderful payoff for daring to be different with a simpler console that could be made at a profit from the get-go and can appeal to regular people who just want to have fun.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/489-nintendo-pounds-sony-and-ms-in-sales

MizPee is a new service focused on delivering pertinent information regarding the location of nearby restrooms.

Using MizPee is as simple as surfing to mizpee.com via a mobile device browser. Users simply enter their location and MizPee delivers a list of nearby toilets, how far away the toilet is, a rating and whether it requires payment. Further details may include disabled access, whether the restroom includes a diaper-changing station and for those really keen on browsing for the best toilet, user comments as well.

SMS is also supported; users can send a text message to 415-350-2290 with their location and receive details of their nearest loo in return.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/128364954/

MySpace will rename and relaunch its video sharing service as MySpaceTV Thursday, according to the NY Times.

MySpace TV will operate as a standalone service and is being billed as a direct competitor to YouTube.

We’ve speculated on News Corps plans for a YouTube competitor previously; rumors first surfaced in December 06 and more recently NBC and News Corp were to launch a site in March. Nothing much has happened since aside from an upgrade to MySpace Video that included branded channels in May.

Thursday’s launch of MySpaceTV may well be the long awaited NBC/ News Corp YouTube killer. It’s probably a case of MySpace TV being better late than never in launching, even if YouTube has doubled its traffic since October and is now even harder to challenge.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/128358466/

Mike Chambers and the Adobe AIR crew have generously released the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide (Amazon) under a creative commons license.

They have given us an electronic copy available for download for free, here.

The pocket guide covers:

• Introduction to AIR
• Getting Started with AIR development
• Working with JavaScript and HTML within AIR
• AIR Mini Cookbook
• Command line tools
• Aliases

Everyone who shows up for the free bus tour will get a paper copy of the book.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/128358342/adobe-air-free-book-download