Ajax Girl

Social shopping service ThisNext has taken $5 million Series B in a round that included previous investors Anthem Venture Partners and Clearstone Venture Partners.

ThisNext launched in 2006 with a product that offers shopping combined with comments, tagging, social recommendations, comment ratings and a wishlist. Users can also create a website widget to show products they like to others via any website.

The company has close links to Jason Calacanis, with Calacanis sitting on the board, and CEO Gordon Gould was previously with Blogsmith (the platform behind Weblogs Inc) and Silicon Alley Reporter.

See Michael’s 2006 review of ThisNext here.

(via PEHub)

ThisNext

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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/~3/225695032/

After months of rumblings and announcements, MySpace is finally getting ready to pull the trigger on its long-awaited platform for developers. Starting today, programmers can sign up to register for the MySpace API program, which will go live on February 5th. The APIs will allow developers to create social applications for MySpace much like they can already for Facebook. The platform will be compatible with Google’s OpenSocial platform, meaning that applications written for OpenSocial will work on MySpace with a few minimal tweaks.

More details will come out later about what exactly the APIs will allow developers to do, but at a high level they will allow for deeper integration into MySpace than can currently be done with Flash widgets. The APIs we believe will support Flash, iFrame elements and Javascript snippets, and give developers deeper access to MySpace member profile information and their connections. Developers also will be able to make money from advertising associated with their applications.

MySpace has a lot of catching up to do with Facebook in terms of building a loyal community of developers. For one thing, Facebook is far ahead technology-wise, with nearly 15,000 apps written for the site. But competition is always welcome. One way for MySpace to attract developers would be to offer better economic incentives. Amit Kapur, who is MySpace’s newly-appointed COO (reported first here a week ago), tells me he is most excited about helping developers make money:

Yeah, I think ultimately that may be an area where we are able to differentiate. If you look at the past, companies like Photobucket and YouTube did contribute to the success of MySpace. They were continuing to build on the user experience in ways we were not focused on. Philosophically, we want to make that easier for companies.

As we find out more details about how the economics will shake out, we’ll keep you posted. Kapur also mentioned that the three big areas MySpace is focusing on right now are: making the Web more personal, more portable (through both mobile and data portability), and more collaborative. It is a fair bet that social apps that focus on those areas are likely to receive more attention from MySpace.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/225691999/

ControlC is an interesting new site that takes normal copy and pasting (Ctrl-C) and runs it through a web service.

At its most basic, after you create an account and install the software, any time you hit Ctrl-C, the information is saved to the ControlC website as well as your local clipboard, as simple text or as a URL link if what you’ve copied is a link. The information is both private and encrypted, although you can make any item public if you like. Public information can be accessed by friends on the site, via RSS, or an API, commented and rated. This is done via a small download that’s available for Windows or Mac machines. The entire project is open source.

What can it be used for? Well, the most obvious use is a simple way to permanently store anything you copy to your clipboard onto the web as well. It’s comparable to some social bookmarking applications that also allow copying of selected text from a website. The main difference is that ControlC works on any application, not just the browser and web pages.

Because people tend to copy so much personal information without thinking about it, security of data is a focus of the startup. Founder Ron Myers says that’s why they make data default private and also encrypt it:

Anything that is not marked as public, will be private and only readable to you. It is without question that everyone puts extremely sensitive data through their clipboard such as passwords and credit card #’s, and assuring someone this data will be safe when its being stored remotely is no easy task. Almost half of the development time that went into ControlC was to make sure that under no circumstance can private data ever be exposed, via SQL injections, XSS, or even someone breaking into the datacenter and stealing the servers with the data on them. What we do is we 2 way encrypt all private data with a unique key, per user- thats based off of their plain text password (which we do not store anywhere, only a md5) - Because we do not store this variable (and you enter it when you want to view sensitive items) even if a attacker was able to ‘hack’ a server, the data would be safe. I suppose most startups wouldnt bother acknowledging that its possible a website can be hacked, as it would make them feel ‘amateur’ but it definitely feels important enough to put out there how we secure data.

The business model is similar to WebMynd, which I covered last week - free access for a limited period of time, with a required paid upgrade if you want to access older data.

The core service is extremely simple, which is why I like it. Since it’s open source, we may see come creative variations of the service emerge. Some of the online office startups like Zoho may find a use for ControlC, for example.

Some readers may remember Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie promoting a service called Live Clipboard in March 2006. Live Clipboard allows the copy and pasting of data, including dynamic, updating data, across and between web applications and desktop applications.

ControlC is in private beta, but you can sign up using the code: beta4040.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/225628195/

MOLI , a US-owned but Dublin-based social startup has launched at DEMO with $29.6m in funding from backers including the founder of Home Depot chain Bernard Marcus, and the chain’s co-founder, Kenneth Langone. They were joined by hedge fund Vantis Capital Management. Indeed GigaOm reports that founder Dr. Christos M. Cotsakos, former Chairman and CEO of E*TRADE and AC Nielsen, has already previously seeded the company with $20 million of his personal funds, plus $6 million from private investors.

MOLI is out to crack the problem of mixing one’s private social network with professional life. Users can create and manage diverse personal profiles via one user identity and a single, customized home page. Users can decide which of their profiles are shared and to whom. But this is not just a Facebook / LinkedIn mashup. MOLI is a social network aimed at “enterprising individuals above the age of 18 and small business owners”, who, for $3.99 will also get a web store, with billing by Google Checkout, or PayPal. Mainstream will also license the MOLI platform and is planning a version of the site aimed at kids.

However, MOLI may need to tweak its privacy settings. Ireland-based blogger Sabrina Dent has highlighted a concern about being spammed by users as soon as she joined, since the site doesn’t currently cloak new joins. But for now, let us hope that MOLI can address these issues soon. [There is a more detailed review of MOLI on TechCrunch UK & Ireland].

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/225601771/

A new application called Sprout, launching in private beta at DEMO today, promises to make the creation of Flash applets a whole lot easier.

Sprout is a browser-based, WYSIWYG editor for Flash with an interface reminiscent of Photoshop or Dreamweaver. Designers can use it to create, publish and track Flash widgets, websites and mashups, thereby obviating the need for them to work with programmers who would cost time and money, and who might not execute designs satisfactorily.

The application itself is entirely Flash/Flex-based and won’t require account registration for first-time users (that is, once the private beta period is over). As can be seen in the screenshot to the left, the interface consists of a staging area for construction of a so-called “sprout” (don’t call it a widget!), as well as several panels for tools, components, pages, properties, and more. I found that my experience with Photoshop served me well for creating a sprout (embedded below) that displays TechCrunch feeds, since the same editing concepts are applied by both programs. That said, it would be nice if Sprout had undo capabilities and proper layering, as found in Photoshop.

While all WYSIWYG editors lack at least some of the functionality achievable through direct programming, Sprout overcomes this limitation in part by providing a library of “components” that can be integrated into a given creation. The company has lined up general components such as video, slideshows and RSS feeds in addition to components from 3rd party web services such as Meebo, Yahoo Maps, PollDaddy and Ribbit.

Sprout is marketing its release as a better way for designers to create distributable widgets. The company has partnered up with Clearspring, Gigya, and SpringWidgets to provide both easy distribution and tracking/analytics. Sprout creators can track the usage of not only entire sprouts but the elements, such as buttons, within those sprouts. They can also use the application to make changes to sprouts that have already been distributed across the web.

While Sprout’s current focus is on the widget use case, its capabilities don’t end there. Since you can create sprouts of any dimensions, there’s nothing stopping you from creating entire websites using Sprout. Its pages and linking functionality certainly lend themselves to this type of creation. And since Sprout has incorporated 3rd party services, it can also be used to create mashup pages/portals. The range of possibilities will increase when Sprout releases an SDK in the following month, allowing outside developers to add to the components library.

Sprout should be publicly available in the next few weeks. Until then, the first 200 TechCrunch readers to sign up here will gain access to its private beta. A video demonstration of Sprout is provided below, alongside the RSS feed sprout I created for TechCrunch (hosted on their demo server so it may go down).

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/~3/225545281/

Adobe AIR, the platform that lets you create desktop apps using web technologies, continues to garner attention. With Beta 3 just recently released and a host of companies coming out with new apps, AIR is building up a ton of steam just prior to it’s official v1.0 release.

First up, Adobe’s Kevion Hoyt gives us a rundown about the new AIR Introspector which is VERY similar to FireBug, but for AIR applications.

We’ve heard this request right from the start “Is there something like Firebug, that lets me monitor the assets in my application?” The answer to that question is now a resounding, YES! The AIR Introspector is designed to let you interact deeply with every aspect of your application.

Mind you that this is a BIG plus to AIR development which hasn’t benefited from having the ubiquitous FireBug to help during tough debugging sessions.

Some features included are:

• Point at a user interface element and be able to see and edit the markup and DOM properties.
• An interactive console that lets you access references, adjust values and execute JavaScript code.
• Lists links, images, CSS and JavaScript assets loaded into your application.
• Provides for viewing the original markup and the current markup.
• Viewer for XHR objects including their properties and headers.
• Search for matching text in the source code of your application.

Also, Aptana just updated the Studio IDE to support AIR Beta 3. While developing AIR in other editors is perfectly fine, Aptana really has done the best job of integrating support into their IDE making it substantially easier to build AIR apps. This is just pure speculation but I wouldn’t doubt that a big player, like Adobe, scoops up Aptana in 2008.

Nasdaq and American Cancer Society

ComputerWorld recently reported that the Nasdaq and American Cancer Society will be leveraging AIR for specific projects.

Nasdaq and the American Cancer Society are among several large organizations eyeing the Adobe runtime as a way to bridge the traditional gap between Web and desktop applications.

Using Adobe’s Flex and AIR, the Nasdaq created an application that can “can provide a replay of the quotes at the time of a trade — and associated prices on different markets — in seconds”.

The software runs on the desktop, relieving servers of a good deal of data-intensive processing, he noted. “We saw the ability to process the data halfway on our servers and have it in as small a package as possible. Then when someone requires a replay of the market, we send a small packet of data to desktop,” he said.

The American Cancer Society has been using AIR since early beta and has continued to build new apps regularly. Their recent initiative was a desktop application to assist users in determining when it was appropriate to schedule mammograms:

Another new Cancer Society application allows users to enter demographic information and receive suggestions about scheduling tests such as a mammogram, he said. The group hopes that providing such reminders on desktop systems will be more effective in prompting users about their treatment needs than forcing them to frequently visit a Web site, Pellegrini added.

They’re also creating a Flex/AIR-based portal for physicians that will allow the doctors to access Cancer Society’s information via the web or in an offline mode.

The offline synchronization capabilities of AIR are especially attractive to many companies as more and more employees are working remotely and may not have immediate access to the web. The inclusion of the SQLLite DB into the AIR runtime seems to have really piqued the interest of IT departments interested in providing the desktop experience without having to retrain their staff in traditional desktop tools such as C# or VB.Net.

Challenges Ahead

AIR is not in the clear though as very strong technologies from both Microsoft (SilverLight/.Net) and Mozilla (XULRunner) are serious challengers to the desktop space and could bite into AIR’s pie. The biggest advantage that AIR has, though, is Flash Player 9’s near 97% penetration rate. In addition, rumor has it that Adobe will issue an update to the Flash player that would include the AIR runtime making it a highly desirable target for building new applications. We’ll have to see if the rumor holds true.

For now, though, AIR is certainly showing a lot of promise and seems to have gotten past the “evaluation” stage. Once v1.0 is officially released (rumored to be sometime soon), the number of AIR applications will undoubtedly rise. I also envision an opportunity for developers to benefit financially from selling desktop applications that seamlessly tie into the web.

This should be interesting.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/225526559/adobe-air-is-on-fire

Connectivity is fast becoming a competitive necessity in the airline industry. Another airline is adding WiFi service to its flights. This time, Continental. But it is the crippled, low-speed kind that can only handle e-mail and instant messaging. CrunchGear weighs in:

Today Continental announced that they will be offering Wi-Fi, but it will be the same crippled mess that you can find on JetBlue. It’s not all bad, though. The agreement with LiveTV will also bring 36 channels of live TV thanks to DirecTV. First-class passengers will receive the service (TV) for free while economy-class passengers will have to muster up $6. The Wi-Fi service I just mentioned will be free. It’s free because it sucks. I’ll wait for AirCell’s service on American or Virgin America.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/225479272/

Bill Orcutt just announced the first beta release of Lily, an open source, Mozilla based visual programming environment written in Javascript. Lily is a very neat way of building an application by connecting modules which handle the intricacies of working with data, animation and sound. It’s a testament to the power of JavaScript:

I’m happy to announce the first beta release of Lily, an open source, Mozilla based visual programming environment written in Javascript. Lily is a modular framework that allows you to wire together Javascript library components graphically. Currently there are Lily modules that wrap components from the YUI, JQuery & Scriptaculous libraries. There are also modules that provide access to the file system, browser storage, network & graphics. Lily programs can be saved as standalone XULRunner applications or as Firefox addons.

Lily currently has over 180 modules which allow you to take advantage of different libraries and services including jQuery, YUI, Google Maps and Amazon.

Bob has provided some demo links to get a feel for some of what Lily can do:

http://www.vimeo.com/625294
http://www.vimeo.com/625739
http://www.vimeo.com/626481
http://www.vimeo.com/625141

I especially found this demo to be cool since I was in need of some music! (Quicktime Movie)

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/225476156/lily-javascript-visual-programming-tool

Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

How Expekt uses Basecamp to manage one of the leading European online gaming sites
“Late this summer I heard about Basecamp and 37signals. 2 months later our whole marketing department collaborates in Basecamp. Lost mails, confusion, and who’s doing what/when are no longer a problem.”

Library professionals use Backpack for presentations (and more)
MCLC Library Tech Talk, a technology interest group for the library professionals in Maricopa County, AZ, recently published a review/description of Backpack: “I use Backpack in particular to collaborate with colleagues on projects or presentations, and often use it to outline any presentation I might give.”

RunMyProcess lets you integrate your Basecamp information with other applications without any programming
“The global idea is to offer integration of Basecamp with another application without any programming: Just design the flow of information and select from our library of connectors the one needed.”Where to get status updates from 37signals
If you’re ever having trouble reaching a 37signals site (including our products), then check the 37signals System Status page. We’ll always post the latest news there on any service issues. The 37status Twitter stream will also keep you up to date on the latest news.

Print data from a php script to a Campfire room with Ice Cube
Up until now, the only API available for Campfire was Tinder, an unofficial API built in Ruby On Rails. But now there’s Ice Cube, which makes it possible to print data from a php script to a room in Campfire. Features include: join room, send message (incl. paste), and leave room.

SmallBizTechnology.com recommends Highrise
SmallBizTechnology.com calls Highrise a new CRM entrant you should highly consider: “It’s feature rich and I recommend you give it a spin for your own business.”

iBackpack makes Backpack pages friendly for the iPhone and iPod Touch
“iBackpack is code (mostly CSS) that optimizes Backpack pages for use on the iPhone and iPod touch. The iBackpack code is hidden from other devices, so it won’t change the way Backpack looks or works on other devices.”

Subscribe to the Product Blog RSS feed.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/822-product-blog-update-ibackpack-runmyprocess-ice-cube-etc

We’ve spoken with most of the top presidential candidates over the last few months to get their on record position on ten key technology issues (Barack Obama, John McCain, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich). But we were never able to nail down time with Ron Paul, despite his strong support from the Internet in general.

Well, it’s never too late. Just two hours after we made our Tech President endorsements live on Fox News this morning, we were able to get some phone time with Dr. Paul as well. The podcast is up at TalkCrunch and embedded below, and we will have a transcript up shortly as well.

Dr. Paul said some very interesting things in the podcast. Among other things, he is softening his anti-net neutrality viewpoint (see here as an example). He’s now readily admiting that he’s willing to listen to both sides of the argument before making a final decision. Ditto on the 700MHz discussion.

More analysis after the transcript is finalized. We’ll post it here.

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Update: Here is the transcript from the call:

(more…)

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/225406479/