Ajax Girl

We just got word from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that the company will be launching a real time search feature “very soon.” Type in a keyword or keywords and any time a Twitter is created that includes those keywords, you’ll be notified via IM or SMS. They’ll add the the ability to access this via their API in the near future, Dorsey says.

The feature hasn’t launched yet, and we’re unsure on some of the details. For example, I’m not sure if you can limit results to just people you are tracking, or if you can get results via RSS or email instead of or in addition to SMS and IM. Either way, Twitter is clearly adding features and functionality at a quick pace, which is good to see. Hopefully, the worst of the downtime is behind us, too.

The fuzzy image to the right is a sample user interface that we received from Twitter.

Update: Dorsey says in the next couple of weeks they’ll allow historical search as well. Also, for now, searches can only be done on all Twitter users. Over time, users will be able to refine searches by friends, geography, time and/or language. For now, results are only returned via SMS and IM - RSS, email and the API will come later.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/160906295/

DocuSign, an eSignature service, has raised a $12.4 million series C led by new investor WestRiver Capital, LLC and their existing investors Ignition Partners, Frazier Technology Ventures and Sigma Partners. It follows a Series B investment of $10 million in April 2006 from Frazier, Ignition, and Sigma. DocuSign, which has been around since 2003, enables companies to get legally binding signatures quickly over the internet instead of over the fax or mail. The whole digital signature business was really opened up during the turn of the century with that passing of the UETA and ESIGN acts, which clarified the legal grounds for electronic signatures nationwide.

DocuSign certifies digital signatures completely over the web, acting as a intermediary who holds the documents and verifies the identity of the signature. To get a document digitally signed, you upload the documents to DocuSign (works with any document you can print), select the parts needing a signature, and create an authentication code for the transaction. DocuSign then sends an email to the recipient with a link to the documents where the signer can log in to their DocuSign account, enter the authentication code, and simply click the signature points to sign the documents. The person’s eSignature (example right) and ID number are then posted in those points of the document, and the signed documents sent back to the sender. There are more details breaking down the transaction on their product page.

Competitors include EchoSign, VeriSign, Entrust and others.

If you have doubts that people are using eSignatures, you should know that, to date, DocuSign has completed over 5 million of them. Their clients currently include Expedia, Land America, RE/MAX, AMICA, Worldspan, Sony, Weyerhaeuser, Yamaha, Tektronix, and Fidelity National Title.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/160899158/

Friendster is back, at least in Asia.

The social network that was the coolest thing on the block until MySpace came around has been slowly regaining its reputation and users over the years, and now boasts 50 million registered user and 27.4 million monthly unique visitors. The only problem (if you call it a problem) is that, like Orkut, most of those users are outside of the U.S. Specifically, they’re in the Asia/Pacific region - 24 million of the total 27.4 million unique monthly visitors come from there, as do 35 million of the 50 million registered users.

So it’s no surprise that the social network is playing to its strengths and launching its first non-English version, in traditional Chinese. This isn’t a separate website or URL; users simply click to Chinese to have the content localized to that language. User generated stuff remains in the original language.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/160882150/

We are being flooded with emails regarding the TechCrunch40 conference - things we did right, things we did wrong (lots, apparently), and suggestions for next year. All are welcome, but what I like to see the most are the emails from presenting companies talking about what’s happened to them since they went up on stage last week.

I’ll be pulling all of the feedback into a wrap up post later this week, but today I received an email from Ponoko, one of the forty launching startups, that really made me feel like the whole thing was worth it. “We reached 1 million website hits within 23 hours 27 mins and 6 secs of launch,” said Derek Elley, the company’s chief strategy officer.

They also wrote a blog post noting some of the coverage the company got immediately after launching - there was a lot of it. So much, in fact, that the site went down for a while.

Ponoko is a cool way for designers to create new physical products and sell them. Users collaborate on design and prototyping all the way through to production. Check it out - the website is back up and humming.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/160878790/

Another TechStars startup has gotten funded over this weekend. Eventvue has closed an angel round of about a quarter million dollars from Brad Feld, David Cohen, Dave McClure, Wendy Lea, amongst others. See our earlier coverage of them here.

Eventvue brings social networking to the context of conferences, helping conference goers re-connect or follow up with business they couldn’t follow up with in the limited span of a conference. Networking at a conference is a fairly inefficient process, left up to chance encounters and stacks of business cards. Anything that can help optimize the limited conference time that thousand dollar ticket bought you is an easy sell.

Confabb is the most direct competitor in the space, but has focused on being a comprehensive directory of the who, what, and where of industry conferences rather than on the palm greasing that goes on at the events. More social competitors include Meetup.com and Eventwax. Eventvue is set for a public launch later this year.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/160820443/

Having just bought a Mac after ten years of Windows, I feel as though I have a heightened appreciation for products and services that are pleasurable to use. And while I love websites that implement Ajax or Flash effectively, few online destinations can match the usability of a well-designed desktop application.

That’s why I found Google Analytics AIR beta, publicly released on September 17th, to be such a breath of fresh air (no pun intended, really).

This unofficial AIR version of Google Analytics delivers the functionality of browser-based Google Analytics but with greater usability and a richer experience. If you haven’t heard of AIR (once named “Apollo”), it’s a platform developed by Adobe that enables web developers to deploy their web services outside of the browser so they function more like traditional applications.

This is the first AIR program that I have tested that really gets me excited about the platform. As a beta program, it’s not perfect (I ran into a few errors), but overall it has been executed very well. It’s also nice to see such a full-functional program developed using someone else’s API (in this case, Google’s).

Check out Google Analytics AIR beta and give the developer, Nico, your feedback to help make this thing even better. If you don’t already have AIR, you need to download it to use any AIR-base applications (as with Flash).

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/160792218/

Well this was inevitable I guess. mEgo has been booted out of the DEMO conference. The reason? They showed their stuff at TechCrunch40 last week. Our coverage of them is here.

That’s a bit rough on the company, since many of the presenting startups at DEMO are already launched and have tons of press out there about them. In this case, mEgo may have simply been the sacrificial lamb in DEMO’s desire to prove a point.

The worst part about the whole ordeal is that mEgo has been told they won’t get the $18,000 back that they paid to participate in DEMO. mEgo says that while DEMO has the right to kick them out of the conference, they don’t have the right to keep the $18k under the contract.

Frankly, this is probably good news for mEgo, who’ll now get far more attention than they would have if they had actually gotten on stage. But it’s also a warning to other startups: Don’t screw with DEMO - they hit back.

Just an aside - mEgo was one of my personal favorites at TechCrunch40. Make sure to check out the service.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/160779654/

Facebook may be worth $10 billion, at least to Microsoft, says the Wall Street Journal. Someone leaked to them that the two companies are in discussions to take a Microsoft investment of $300-$500 million for 5% of the company.

Here’s the (free) Reuters angle on the story. They’re saying Facebook may be holding out for a $15 billion valuation. What the hell. Why not?

The two companies have had an advertising relationship since late 2006. The WSJ is also hedging strongly on the story by saying that the discussions are still preliminary.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/160738681/

One of the highlights of the TechCrunch40 conference last week was when I had an opportunity to sit down with Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. We talked for 45 minutes about some of the big projects Facebook has launched over the last year - including the launch of the News Feed in 2006, the Facebook Platform, dealing with user abuse by third party developers and much, much more.

Mark also made a surprise announcement about mid way through the talk - the launch of fbFund, a new entity that will make grants to facebook application developers.

The entire video is embedded above.

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/~3/160713345/

On Monday, October 29, 2007 in Chicago, Jim Coudal, Jason Fried, and Carlos Segura will lead a presentation and discussion on design, entrepreneurship, and inspiration. We’re calling this one day event the SEED Conference. Attendance is limited to 135 people and the price is $399.

What you’ll learn

You’ll learn about taking control of your own work, seeking out methods to inspire new ideas, and adopting unconventional ideas about collaboration and business.

Who should attend

You should attend if you’re a designer (print, web, video) or a business-minded soul who’s looking to take your creative ideas and turn them into something satisfying and bankable. Anyone creative with an open mind will take away something useful.

The format

The format will be comfortable and open. Some lectures, some networking, and ample time for questions, discussion and interaction. This is a day of active learning, not just idle listening.

A wonderful venue

The venue will inform the discussion too. The auditorium at the Rem Koolhaas designed McCormick Tribune Campus Center was built with new ideas and is set amid the historic Mies-designed campus of IIT.

Bonus “Working-lunch”

A catered “Working-Lunch” will feature a talk about the IIT Campus and Mies van der Rohe by Public Radio host,
architecture critic, and Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, Edward Lifson.

Sign up quick

With only 135 seats available, and three in-high-demand speakers, seats are sure to go quickly. Get more info and sign up today.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/610-announcing-the-seed-conference-featuring-jim-coudal-jason-fried-and-carlos-segura