Ajax Girl

About 43,000 pints of blood are donated each day by Canadians and Americans, which help the 4.5 million patients who need that blood transfusions every year. Total donations aren’t adequate to satisfy demand, though, and shortages occur regularly.

When a patient is in need of blood that isn’t available, it becomes a life and death situation. Historically the Red Cross will make efforts to alert the public during a shortage. But there may be a better way - leverage the social networks to get the word out. If shortages of a certain type of blood occur in a certain zip code, having a database of willing donors in that zip code to contact may be the most efficient way to solve the problem quickly.

That’s where Takes All Types (TAT), a non-profit organization, comes in. Users install their just-released Facebook application, tell it their location and blood type, and say how often they are willing to be contacted to donate blood (maximum is every 57 days). If a shortage occurs, they’ll contact you via the methods that you authorize (Facebook, email, text message, etc.)

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/248667448/

Last Thursday, March 6, multiple sources say, the CNET board of directors and CEO Neil Ashe met with representative from the Jana Partners investor consortium that has amassed a 21% ownership stake in the troubled company. The goal of the meeting was to negotiate a settlement that would avoid a proxy fight and a potential hostile takeover attempt.

Jana Partners’ founder Barry Rosenstein was the lead representative from the consortium’s side, which also includes investments from Sandell Asset Management, Spark Capital, and entrepreneur Paul Gardi.

From what we hear the meeting didn’t go so well. “It was tense and uncomfortable,” said one source. The CNET board “is in a state of denial” about the seriousness of the situation, said another. The consortium wants the company to focus on technology, including an overhaul of the dated CNET content management system and ad serving platform. The CNET board instead wants to “aggressively expand” their business internationally and focus less on infrastructure improvements.

For now the two groups are mostly talking about high level company strategy. But at some point the consortium, which is the largest CNET stockholder, will want a significant board presence. That might mean as many as 3-4 board seats out of the 8 that exist now.

CNET stock continues to slump - it’s worth about half as much as it was two years ago. The company has recently made a few high profile management changes (all for the better, in my opinion) and has sold off assets. But deeper changes are clearly needed.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/248639779/

Digg users tend to get pissed off about a lot of things. Any story about Microsoft, for example. Or anything that criticizes Apple. Usually, the ability to bury stories about non-mob-approved topics, combined with the comment area under headlines, is enough of a release valve to settle things down.

But not always - and Digg has a track record of surrendering to the mob when things get really bad.

Based on some of the comments to this story about Digg’s officially-not-happening (but happening nonetheless) acquisition, Digg users are getting all riled up for another fight. Particularly if the buyer ends up being Microsoft.

A sample of the 544 comments left on that story:

• Don’t sell Digg Kevin! Digg this story he needs to know how we feel!
• Why not sell digg when you don’t care about the community. Sell it and we will be happy.
• Somehow i think if Microsoft manages to buy digg a larger revolt than 09 F9 11… will happen, at least i know what i will do
• I would have to see how things went afterward. If Google tried to shoehorn their “style” in to Digg’s interfaces (see: Jotspot), or if Microsoft tried to turn it in to a Windows program, I would switch to Reddit. I like Digg more, but either of those scenarios would kill Digg for me.
  If MS is in, I’m out.
• OK guys, Kevin doesn’t give half a shit about you. He cares about what all americans care about: $500,000,000 in his pocket. Good old capitalism, eh?
  Goodbye Digg… Its been good knowing you… too bad you were gobbled up by corporate america. I remember back in the day when you were a bastion of free speech and unfettered entertainment, but no longer. I guess I will have to revert back to the “best of” section of Craigslist. Don’t sell your soul.
• As long as they lets us delete our accounts
• I am new to digg.com and I really like it. If Microsoft were to buy it that would be it for me. I will remove it from my favorites and never come back.
• Dude. If Microsoft gets its fucking hands on this site then you will definitely have one less viewer. Those fuckers taint everything they touch.
• Is this for real come on Kevin don’t give up to digg to these huge companies. What makes digg so special and fun is that it’s independent this is not a good idea.
• If Microsoft purchases this site, go ahead and make your last act to institute a ‘delete your account’ function.
• This is terrible news. Lets see if we can have yet another viable outlet bought up by huge conglomerates which try to feed us what we are allowed to think and censor our beliefs. I tell you what. If digg is sold, I’m not coming here anymore! Kevin please don’t let this happen. Tell us this is about more than money.

So far, the feedback is mostly pleading, not angry (see this blog post). But as things progress, this could turn nasty, and fast. Mixx, Reddit and other competitors, I’m sure, are looking forward to that happening, and will be more than happy to pick up any stray Digg users who abandon the much-loved/much-hated Digg.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/248540056/

Zivity is an adult content social network and user generated content site (they call it “Promoting Beauty 2.0″). It has the distinction of being one of the first adult content startups to be backed by venture capital via a $1 million seed round in 2007, and it caused quite a stir at its official launch at TechCrunch40. As we mentioned last month, mainstream press is starting to pay serious attention to them.

The company will announce a new $7 million round of financing in a deal led by both BlueRun Ventures and Founders Fund. The company has now raised a total of $8 million. The social networking experience that these VCs add is substantial. Founders Fund is an early Facebook investor. Both are investors in Slide.

John Malloy of BlueRun Ventures and Luke Nosek of Founders Fund join Zivity co-founders Scott Banister, Cyan Banister (who also models for the site) and Jeffrey Wescott on the company’s board of directors.

The site allows both amateur and professional models and photographers to show their stuff. Users vote on those that they like, which channel real dollars to the talent. The more votes, the more money. The basic site is free, but users must pay to vote. About 40% of gross revenue is given directly to the talent. With a recent redesign, the site is focused much more on social networking - users and talent have profile pages and can add each other as friends. They’ve even added a news feed feature that shows who is adding who as friends, and which models users have voted for.

Zivity remains in private beta (and will likely stay there until early 2009), although current users are given invitations to give to their friends. That means that most people joining the site today already know someone who’s using it, and can add them as a friend. In my “testing” of the site I noticed that the current users seem active in voting and friending. My guess is that building the community slowly but focusing on active users is a good way to go. And besides, anyone that really wants in can get an invitation on InviteShare.

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/~3/248255733/