Ajax Girl

Brian Moschel just told us about Include:

It determines which files to compress at runtime and automatically compresses them into one script using Dean Edwards’ Packer.

You can include any JavaScript from any other JavaScript with a relative path:

Then turn on compression like this:

When you reload the page, a window will open that contains a list of the scripts as they are loaded, the uncompressed collection of code, and the code compressed with Packer. You save the compressed code on your server and turn on production mode:

Scripts load in the same order across all browsers (last-in first-out), which is nice, considering document.write by default works differently in Opera.

Another aspect we’re excited about is that Include makes it so you’ll never have to write a custom server-side compression script again. Since the scripts to compress are determined at runtime, you can easily compress large libraries with conditional plugins, like TinyMCE.

Instead of duplicating that logic in a server-side script, you can choose your plugins, turn on compress mode, and you’ve got your compressed code. To demonstrate this, we ported TinyMCE and plugins to use Include.

Include is open-source with an MIT license. I hope you find it as useful as we have.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/241902360/include-pack-your-javascript-with-ease

Yelp, the popular local review site, has just closed a $15 million dollar round led by DAG Ventures, with a valuation of $200 Million. Yelp says that they will be using the money to expand geographically, add onto their sales team, and establish a second office in New York City. This is Yelp’s fourth round of funding, and has now taken $31 million since their founding in 2004.

Yelp is also boasting some impressive stats: 8.3 million uniques in the past 30 days and over 2.3 million reviews (with the 1 million mark being reached on May 2007). Yelp is in a competitive space with Citysearch, InsiderPages, and YellowBot.

With this latest round, DAG joins previous investors Max Levchin ($1 million, Summer 2004), Bessemer Venture Partners ($5 million, Q4 2005), and Benchmark Capital ($10 million, Q4 2006).

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/241882307/

Facebook has always had much cleaner, less chaotic profile pages than “anything goes” competitor MySpace (MySpace continues to experiment with less chaotic default themes). Facebook just seems to like things to stay orderly and structured on their site. But as users add dozens of applications and other content to their profiles, it’s becoming harder for friends to quickly find basic information about you.

They recently allowed users to clean up their own profiles. Today, they’re announcing further changes - a multi-tab profile that separates personal information, wall posts and photos into separate pages.

Screen shots are below. One thing that’s unclear, and that I’m trying to get more information on, is whether wall posts have now been combined with the news feed. The screen shots suggest they have. Also, I’m assuming the tabs are loaded with Javascript, so the pages aren’t refreshing every time a user clicks to a different area of the profile, but I have not confirmed that yet either.

Application developers aren’t going to like the new layout because it looks like they no longer appear on every profile page view - viewers will have to click on a tab to see the user’s installed applications. In a blog post last Friday giving developers a heads up on the upcoming changes, though, this was spun as good news. We’ll see how they react.

This is not being rolled out immediately. Facebook has set up a Facebook Profiles Previews group to track feedback and keep interested users up to date.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/241781644/

From Mobilecrunch:

Daem Interactive has developed Skuair, new technology that it is calling the next generation of 2d code readers. Skuair isn’t limited to reading barcode lines and numbers but can read product logos or images. Skuair works with any mobile phone camera and is easy to operate. The user simply takes a picture of an advertisement or product logo and a low resolution image is sent to the recognition server and an associated URL is returned. The user can receive a variety of multimedia content from the company or person who owns the image

User generated tags will be launched later this year. A short demo of how Skuair works.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/241764749/

Rollbase will tomorrow officially launch its do-it-yourself, on-demand application development and delivery platform offering Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for users who aren’t programming experts.

Rollbase can be used to design, develop and deploy custom Web-based applications using intuitive and interactive tools within a web browser. It’s pitched as providing “an easy to learn and flexible toolset in a rich AJAX-based user experience” making “web-based application development possible for people who may not have the time, resources or expertise to create on-demand applications using traditional software development methods.”

In laymen’s terms: it allows the rest of us to design and customize business applications.

Rollbase components include

• wizards for creating database tables, fields, relationships and other application components
• interactive drag and drop page editor with ability to embed any HTML, scripts or widgets
• portal technology for building sophisticated external-facing applications that can be embedded in other Web sites and Web-based applications
• workflow engine with automation, trigger conditions and event queue management
• search engine with global full text search and field-specific indexing control
• Conversion maps for seamless integration between and among all Rollbase applications
• Custom ad-hoc reporting, 2D and 3D animated real-time charting

Rollbase operates in the same space as Force.com, but Rollbase notes that it’s designed for business users that don’t have access to programmers or developers.

TechCrunch readers can click here to sign up for a free 60 day trial account on Rollbase.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/241740574/

Gaboogie is organizing a contest for developers to mashup their voice-application Lypp with Highrise. There are some cool prizes up for grabs including a $3,000 Apple gift certificate for number #1 and free service from Lypp and Highrise.

They got some cool ideas to get you going, like “Integrated Conference Calling within Highrise, Scheduled Calls, Click to Call Contacts in Highrise, Call-back Task links, just to name a few”. Get programming!

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/882-mashup-lypp-and-highrise-for-fun-and-profit

So… We’ve managed to build a really successful business through word of mouth. We’ve dabbled in text ads here, and a couple display ads there, but it’s our customers who are responsible for spreading our word far and wide. In four years we’ve probably spent less than $25,000 on advertising.

Let’s try something new

We love that we’re a word of mouth business. We plan on remaining a strong word of mouth business. Trusted recommendations are gold.

But we’d also like to begin experimenting with other forms of advertising. More “traditional” forms, but in a non-traditional way. If that makes sense we’ll probably get along great.

We’re interested in significantly broadening the awareness of the 37signals brand, our unique take on software, and our products. We have a story to tell and products to sell.

Pitch us

If you’re an ad agency that’s up to the challenge of working with us, we’d love to hear from you. Our standards are high. We want great work. Innovative work. Memorable work. But above all, effective work. We love great advertising and loathe bad advertising. We’re prepared to take this seriously.

Please shoot me an email if you think you could be the ones. Send to svn at 37signals dot com and include [ad pitch] in the subject line. Thanks.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/883-advertising-people-pitch-us

Google’s stock took a big hit today—still down 4 percent to $465—on comScore data suggesting that the click-through rate on its paid search ads is decelerating. As the chart above from Bear Stearns shows, the year-over-year growth of paid clicks on Google in the U.S. went from 37 percent in October to 0.3 percent in January. Since these are year-over-year numbers, seasonality is accounted for (there are more clicks in the months leading up to Christmas than after, but this January should not be flat with last January). The deceleration is alarming, to say the least. Even Henry Blodget, Mr. Google $2,000, now thinks this is a “disaster.”

One explanation Wall Street analysts are putting out there today is that this could be an indicator that Google is not immune to the general economic slowdown. While a recession may be coming, that explanation is not convincing. Yahoo would have felt it as well, yet comScore reported a 15 percent year-over-year growth in paid clicks for Yahoo in January (to 242 million, compared to Google’s 532 million). Also, as Bill Tancer at Hitwise points out, traffic from Google to shopping sites is still above last year’s levels (evidence that paid clicks may actually be improving):

A more likely explanation is that Google is tightening the reins on clicks to combat click fraud and generate better clicks in general. Also the correlation between comScore’s click-through estimates and Google’s revenues has been highly inconsistent in the past. It definitely isn’t a one-to-one correlation. For instance, in the fourth quarter of 2007, comScore showed a 25 percent year-over-year paid click-through growth rate, yet Google’s actual U.S. revenues grew 46 percent. In the third quarter of last year, comScore showed a 48 percent growth rate for paid clicks, compared to an actual 58 percent growth in revenues. Sequential quarter-over-quarter comparisons are even more all over the map, according to calculations by JPMorgan.

So the comScore’s data maybe a leading indicator that all is not well at Google, it is not precise enough to calculate what the actual impact will be on Google’s business. What we are seeing here is the flip side of Google’s tight-lipped policy when it comes to giving investors any guidance whatsoever. Given this information vacuum, when the slightest bit of negative data comes out such as it did today, the market will assume the worst.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/241722393/

Yesterday San Diego based DivX announced the shutdown of popular video site Stage6, to the surprise and dismay of the site’s 17.4 million happy monthly visitors (the post on the shutdown has over 5,000 comments).

There’s lots of speculation around why DivX is shutting the site down, ranging from piracy issues to the spiraling CDN costs of streaming all that HD content. But what really happened, according to multiple sources, is that a ridiculous battle of egos at the DivX board level caused most of the team to simply quit. DivX, essentially, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

First a bit of history - just before DivX went public in late 2006 it launched Stage6 as a way to show off the capabilities of the DivX codec. Without any promotion at all the site quickly gathered users. By mid 2007, when the site went into beta, it had millions of users and tens of millions of page views. The high quality video was key - users simply flocked to it.

DivX cofounder and CEO Jordan Greenhall knew he had a potential hit on his hands. He decided to explore a sale of Stage6, and hired Montgomery Securities to see who might buy it. He also started pitching VCs on the idea of funding it as a spinoff. Given the conflict of interest, he resigned as CEO of DivX - president Kevin Hell took over the company. Darrius Thompson, (DivX co-founder), Mark How (DivX VP Business Development), Mark Chweh, Chester Ng and about 20 other DivX employees joined him. All shared the title of “cofounder” at Stage6.

Montgomery spent the second half of 2007 pitching Stage6 to buyers, although there wasn’t much interest. But VCs were eager to buy in to the idea of a spinoff. By November they had commitments from Crosslink Capital, Sofinnova France and Mission Ventures to invest $20 million at a $90 million post money valuation. Another $5 million was committed from a strategic investor, plus $2 more from “friends and family.” All in all, Stage6 was preparing to close a $27 million round. DivX was to retain 20% ownership in the new funded entity.

Not only was DivX to receive a substantial chunk of equity in the new company, they’d be able to get the operating costs, estimated to be around $1 million/month in CDN costs alone, off their books. And Stage6 was to give most of their 2008 revenues back to Divx as well.

Those revenues were not immaterial. Everyone who views a video on Stage6 must first download the DivX player. Packaged with the download was an option to download the Yahoo Toolbar. The revenue from Yahoo to DivX is around $16 million per year. Our sources estimate that half that, or around $8 million/year, was due to Stage6 downloads. And that share was growing - 2008 toolbar revenues may have been as high as $10 million, making Stage6 almost breakeven.

At a meeting in late November the DivX board was asked to approve the spinoff and venture financing. But at the last minute the board decided to cancel the spinoff and retain control of Stage6. It’s not clear why they did this - perhaps they were surprised at the valuation and wanted to keep control of the assets. Or perhaps the revenue from Stage6 was too material for them to let it go over the long run. From what we hear a massive battle of ego’s ultimately killed the deal. But when the decision was made, the key Stage6 founders resigned. DivX made a brief announcement abut Greenhall’s departure, and added that it “expects to take additional time to consider the alternatives available to the Company related to the future of the Stage6 service.”

From that point everyone expected DivX to just continue to run the site. But over December and January they may have become concerned again about the costs of streaming the video and running the site without most of the key team there to look after things. Three weeks ago, we hear, DivX re-approached Greenhall and asked if they’d like to do the original deal. Greenhall declined.

So then DivX announced the closure of Stage6. When it shuts down all those millions of DivX downloads and associated Yahoo revenue goes away with it. At the end of the day DivX threw out the baby, the bathwater, millions of dollars in revenue and tens of millions of users. Their board and executive team, in short, look like fools. Investors seem to agree - the stock hit an all time low today.

DivX declined to comment on this post.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/241693476/

Jay Gould, the former owner of a social network and video site called Bolt.com that was started in the nineties but shut down this past fall following bankruptcy at the hands of a Universal Music Group lawsuit, has launched a new advertising network for casual gaming sites called Gamers Media.

The new network, which as GigaOm points out joins the likes of NeoEdge, Mochi Media and even Google itself, already claims to reach nearly 20 milion unique visitors across 40 sites. The company insists that these unique visitors are particularly attractive targets for advertisers since they earn high salaries and spend substantial amounts of time per visit on casual gaming sites.

Gamers Media has chosen Adify to power its ad network. Adify, which we wrote about in fall of 2006, provides software for the creation of vertical ad networks.

Gould is also the founder and CEO of WikiYou.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/241708282/