Ajax Girl

Yahoo’s CTO Ari Balogh and Chief Architect (Platforms) Neal Sample filled in a few more details today around their new Yahoo Open Strategy (called YOS internally).

Background

Yahoo wants to turn itself into one big social network-driven site, and simultaneously open many of its core services to get users and developers thinking of Yahoo as their Internet hub. They’ve been talking about parts of this since last November. First were details about how webmail will serve as the social networking hub, followed by more tidbits in January. In March they joined the Google-led Open Social initiative. And they’ve made a series of announcements around Search Monkey which will allow third parties to enhance Yahoo search with structured data.

Yahoo Open Strategy

Yahoo mashes the social stuff and the open stuff under the same banner of YOS. There are three components to the additional news announced today - platformization, opening services, and portability. It’s important to note that nothing has launched, and there’s no public timetable for the launch of any particular part of YOS. Sample said in a briefing today that the pieces will be released over the coming months.

Below is Balogh’s presentation at the web 2.0 Expo:

Platformization: Users will notice this most, as the overall Yahoo experience becomes social. This is driven by (1) the reduction of the dozens of profiles (for each service) they have today to a single, unified Yahoo user profile, and (2) the promotion of the email inbox as the center of the Yahoo experience. Once the profile is centralized they will begin to socialize the services. Think friends lists, activity streams, etc.

Clearly Yahoo isn’t bolting yet another social network onto their existing services. They keep saying that, of course. But event the fact that they refer to this part of it as “platformization” internally shows how they are thinking of this. They’re moving Yahoo to a massive new social network platform, and rewriting large parts of the core functionality.

Open Yahoo: This encompasses a few different things. First, they are now deeply involved in OpenSocial and will allow developers to get access via those common APIs. But they are layering their many existing (and planned) APIs on top of OpenSocial to allow deeper integration with Yahoo services. Users will be able to add these third party applications, built on Open Social and the Yahoo APIs, into Yahoo.

The other piece of this is Yahoo Application Platform (YAP) - which will be a direct competitor to Google App Engine. Users can host their independent applications on Yahoo’s bandwidth, storage, database and CPU resources. At first they’ll support SecurePHP applications only, but they’ll expand to additional languages over time. The model will be very similar to Google’s - free usage up to a point, metered after that. They’ll also offer various developer tools as well.

Portability. Yahoo is also going to promote the spread of Yahoo around the web to third party apps and services. This isn’t just widgets - they’ll also let user data out of the ecosystem. For example, Sample said in the briefing, they’ll facilitate the synchronization of the Yahoo address book with Plaxo (Facebook hated the idea of users doing this, by the way).

Yahoo: Sticky, Viral, Friendly

Yahoo continues to compete in search marketing, the big driver of revenue. But they realize they’ll always be second to Google in that game. So the win for them is to make Yahoo as sticky, friendly, and viral as possible. They have 500 million worldwide visitors per month - nearly 60% of the total Internet audience visits a Yahoo property every month (Google has 72%) (Comscore). That audience can clearly be leveraged, and this is a war that, unlike search marketing, Yahoo thinks they can win.

They still, of course, have to actually launch this massive project - for now it’s all ideas and vaporware. And no one knows what Microsoft thinks of all this, or what happens to YOS if that deal is done.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277307034/

Chilirec is a new Swedish music site found through Go2Web20 that extracts individual tracks from internet radio stations. It then lets you either play them back in the browser or download them as MP3 files for later use.

You start with Chilirec by choosing from a preselected set of a few hundred channels. Two downsides: you can’t load your own channels and you can’t listen to them normally before choosing to record. But once you to start recording, Chilirec will begin loading the songs into its Flash-based player so you can play them back at your convenience (somehow it knows just when songs begin and end, and which ones they are).

After you’ve built up a recorded collection, you can search through your songs using keywords that will match artists, titles and genres. You can also play recordings by channel, artist, and playlist. A “toplists” feature will presumably display the songs that are most popular across your selected channels, but it takes at least a day of recording to work.

If you want to play a song outside of Chilirec, you can click on an icon next to it and it will be saved as an MP3 on your desktop. It would be great to see them add a feature for bulk downloads in addition to the ability to load your own channels (for your local radio station, for example).

Chilirec is a nice tool for when you don’t know exactly which music you want to add to your collection. Other music search sites like Songza and Skreemr are better when you have an artist or song name in mind. And of course, Pandora and Jango are great for when you want to find music related to the stuff you already know you like.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277276741/

FirewallScript has just launched a software-based security service that can be used on any server that supports PHP5, and even provides support for shared hosts.

The firewall is very similar in function to the popular open source firewall ModSecurity, but according to co-founder Ron Myers, there are some important differences. For one, a ModSecurity installation is server-wide, meaning that nobody on a shared hosting plan is able to install or modify its settings. This inevitably leads to problems, because ModSecurity tends to take a generalized approach to protection which may conflict with valid applications run by users who are unable to disable it.

In contrast, FirewallScript can be installed by any user on a server, even under a shared hosting plan. All users can install or modify their security settings at will, and FirewallScript offers ‘Rule Packs’ which are pre-configured for certain web apps like WordPress and vBulletin. This allows users to tailor their security to cover things that applications like ModSecuity may have mishandled. Installation is also a breeze, requiring only a simple install script and a minimal amount of technical knowlege.

I think that FirewallScript could have a place in the market, given that the vast majority of small-time sites are hosted on cheap shared hosting plans. But I question how many people will be unsatisfied with the security their plans already provide, or how many will care about security to begin with. For those that are interested, enter the code ‘techcrunch’ for 50% off the normal price of $85.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277279910/

Microsoft just announced its March quarterly earnings. As expected, CFO Chris Liddell did not budge on Microsoft’s stance towards raising its bid for Yahoo. During the conference call he made the following statement about Yahoo, which you can listen to here courtesy of EarningsCast (I’ve bolded the more interesting parts):

With or without a Yahoo combination, Microsoft is focused on the online advertising market, which is expected to double by 2010 to $80 billion. Although Yahoo would accelerate our efforts, we have an existing strategy that is already centered on three key pillars: drive innovation on search, increase value to advertisers and publishers, and increase user engagement across our MSN and Windows Live properties.

We have an extremely talented engineering team, a great portfolio of advertiser and publisher tools, and key assets in information content, communications, and social networking. Lastly, We are committed to compete in online advertising through organic investments, partnerships, and acquisitions such as aQuantive and Rapt.

With respect to Yahoo we have been clear, as evidenced in the size of our offer premium, that speed is of the essence for the deal to make sense. Unfortunately the transaction has been anything but speedy, as has been characterized by what appear to be unrealistic expectations of value. Our initial offer was an extremely generous, more than 100 percent premium for Yahoo’s core business. Our view on value is shaped by the longterm value and we plan to stay disciplined in our approach,

The strongest argument that we should increase our bid because we can afford to is not one I favor. We have yet to see tangible evidence that our bid substantially undervalues the company. In fact we see the opposite. Yahoo continues to lose search share and profitability continues to decline year on year. The results they announced on Tuesday were in line with the guidance they gave on their last earnings call on January 29th, after which their stock price closed at $19.05 and Wall Street analysts consensus on value was significantly decreased.

As outlined in our recent letter to the Yahoo board, unless we make progress with Yahoo towards an agreement by this weekend we will reconsider our alternatives. We will provide updates as appropriate next week. These alternatives include taking our offer to Yahoo shareholders or to withdraw our proposal and focus on other opportunities, both organic and inorganic. We can’t go in the Q&A session beyond what I just said.

As far as Microsoft’s quarter went, revenues were flat at $14.5 billion and operating income declined 33 percent to $4.4 billion. The drop in operating income was largely due to $1.7 billion in deferred revenue that the company recognized last year at this time related to the release of Windows Vista. Earnings per share came in at $0.47, about two cents above consensus, but still down from $0.51 last year.

Some highlights from the different operating segments:

—Client revenue (Windows) was down 24 percent to $4B, but it still brought in $3B in operating income.
—Server revenue was up 16 percent to $3.3B, with operating income of $1B
—Microsoft Business held steady at $4.7B in revenues, and operating profits were slightly down to $3.1B
—Entertainment and devices (Xbox, Zune, etc) saw a 68 percent rise in revenue to $1.6B, and managed to eke out an operating profit of $89 million.
—Online services revenue was up 40 percent to $843 million, but that business posted a larger operating loss of $228 million.

And here are the slides:

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277226390/

This post was written by guest contributor Mark Brooks, an analyst/consultant whose blog Online Personals Watch summarizes the daily internet dating industry news.

In the internet dating space, bigger is not always best. According to the latest U.S. numbers from Hitwise, the top niche dating sites are steadily gaining market share while their big mainstream counterparts stagnate.

We compared the overall dating market share of the top 5 sites - Singlesnet, Plentyoffish, TRUE, Yahoo Personals and Match - to the market share of several top niche sites to see how their growth rates compared. In March 2008, the top 5 overall sites held 7% less market share than they did one year ago (Plentyoffish and Singlesnet were the only sites to buck this trend individually). Meanwhile, the top sites from the top five major niche dating categories made considerable gains, with the gay dating and religious dating categories growing the fastest.

It’s apparent that a growing proportion of users is looking for more focused experiences with those who share particular interests and desires; this despite the fact that users can find more fish in the proverbial sea at mainstream sites.

The particular interests mainly relate to sexual preferences, races, and religions. Top sites include Adam4Adam, Manhunt, Gay.com for homosexuals; BlackPeopleMeet, BlackSingles, BlackChristianPeopleMeet for African Americans; and ChristianMingle, JDate, and Christian Café for the religiously-oriented.

Another top niche - and the biggest niche in terms of total traffic - is casual dating, which consists of sites like Fling, AdultFriendFinder, and SexSearch. Although I’m not sure casual dating can really be called a niche. As Adam Small, CMO of SexSearch has put it bluntly: “Our target market is anyone over the age of 21 who is interested in sex, which is almost everybody.”

Casual (or “adult”) dating sites are the antithesis of eHarmony and are definitely not focused on helping people find long-term relationships. Instead, they help the more “casually inclined” to find the people who fit their specific physical and sexual preferences. Very specific preferences in some cases.

These casual sites have shown solid gains in the internet market as a whole. While the top 10 mainstream dating sites gained only 0.01% of total Internet traffic over the past year, the top three casual adult sites gained 0.07%. That’s a hefty 56% increase in the traffic to adult dating sites, although it’s important to remember that smaller sites have an easier time showing big gains in their traffic.

Disclosure: Brooks has worked for FriendFinder and has advised Manhunt. Plentyoffish is presently a client of Courtland Brooks, his consultancy.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277213175/

The last few weeks have been chock full of gadget news. We spotted the costumes from the latest G.I. Joe movie and almost got sued for posting them. Then we had an interview with the head of Psystar talk to us about their $399 Mac clone that is winging its way to our office right now. This week is also Green Week at CrunchGear and we’ll be posting great features about helping the environment one keyclick at a time.

We’re also having a Seattle mini-meet-up tomorrow and an NYC mega-meet-up on May 1. Last but not least, we present the Sweater Friends. They act out scenes from our weekly live CrunchGear Talk Radio show and may eventually replace us completely. Tune in tomorrow, Friday April 25 at 1PM EST to give us a listen.

• GTA IV ads pulled from Chicago buses under pressure from Fox News
• Playstation 3 to see online video service soon
• New Nikon DSLR bodies and lenses rumored for June
• CNET’s Molly Wood to Zune: It’s over
• NYC Dept of Education has had it with Leopard’s Wi-Fi
• Blackberry Pearl 8120 from T-Mobile
• Review: Olympus SP-570UZ
• Review: HTC Shift (CDMA version)
• The Orientation: Organic light-emitting diodes

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277233963/

Making social networks work inside companies is a difficult task. Who wants to update their “status” to tell everyone what they are working on, or have to tag things manually? We’ll do that for our friends on Facebook, but for our co-workers on the terrible ‘knowledge management’ system the company installed? Not so much.

But the space is hotting up. BEA Systems launched a social network for enterprise platform recently and Oracle’s AppsLab is working on a social network internally. But much of the intelligence in the system requires employees to so the heavy lifting, which is boring.

So at Web 2 Expo this week, Trampoline Systems, the UK-based enterprise startup, launched its new Sonar Dashboard tool designed to be a “Facebook for the enterprise”. This allows employees to create profiles, watch a news feed of colleagues’ activity and use a contacts list. Dashboard automatically tracks employees’ everyday work activity, such as email. Their Sonar Server product analyzes the social graph, information flows and expertise hidden within the company, allowing users to work out who in the company can help them, across departments and geographies. Sonar Dashboard makes the network searchable, and gives visibility to the right people via a simple visualization tool that maps the user’s social graph. Users can completely control what they share (the system automatically filters out blatantly personal material) and also lets them work out what they themselves are most preoccupied with. I haven’t seen a product like it so far and the visualization tools are pretty amazing. See TechCrunch UK for a longer review. Trampoline raised $6.8 million from Tudor private equity.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277205045/

“YouTube sold for $1.6 billion. How much will you sell yours for?”

That’s the over-optimistic hook being used by StartYourTube to entice people into setting up branded video sharing sites on its white label platform.

StartYourTube does exactly what the name implies. You can go onto the site, create your own “tube”, customize it with colors and graphics, mask it to your own domain, invite friends, and start loading content. The tubes not only host videos but have sections for pictures, audio files, and blogs as well.

They also look and feel much like YouTube, with most recent, most viewed and most viewed lists. Users can vote and comment on videos; however, there’s no related videos list for each video.

This is entirely a free service with, puzzlingly, no perceivable revenue source for the owners. (Update: As has been noticed by commenters, it’ll actually cost you to raise the limits on how much content can be added to your tube and how many views you can receive). Publishers get to keep 100% of ad revenues and the site is even running a $500 promotional giveaway campaign for the “top tubes”.

So far over 11,000 tubes have been created, including ones for snowboarding and anime. It was perhaps inevitable that a straightforward, white label video sharing platform would arise, especially given the success of other consumer social media platforms like Ning.

But it’s not the first company to give users and businesses more power to curate online videos. Magnify was built around the idea of creating specialized channels around videos hosted elsewhere. Reality Digital, KickApps, and VSocial all provide video hosting services that integrate with existing websites. And now with YouTube’s APIs, the online video gorilla itself is giving developers more control over how videos are managed on the web.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277164043/

Just as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft regularly by startups to fill in gaps in their technology or business, media companies may be starting to do the same on the content side. Today, CondeNet (the digital arm of magazine publisher Conde Nast) bought SFO Media, which operates two travel blogs: Jaunted and HotelChatter. The first is a travel guide and the second is a hotel-review blog.

The price of the deal wasn’t disclosed, but SFO Media founder Mark Johnson is basically being hired to keep running the sites, which will continue to run separately but be combined with Concierge.com business.

It can use the help. Concierge.com’s worldwide unique visitors (blue line in chart below) dropped from a peak of 2 million last October to 700,000 last March, according to comScore. (Part of this decline can be attributed to the seasonal nature of the travel business). Meanwhile, the combined worldwide traffic of Jaunted (red line) and HotelChatter (green line) in March was about 875,000 unique visitors. So two mildly successful blogs just doubled the advertising inventory that Concierge.com’s sales people can sell.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277165687/

Along with a bunch of other European firms exhibiting at Web 2 Expo this week (including 20 from Ireland) were a group of 21 UK startups selected from over 100 applicants by TechCrunch UK, working in conjunction with the UK government. Announced in March, the trip was dubbed WebMission and most of the firms had never visited the Valley before. So I thought I’d give you a heads-up about the firms, who, after a week of meetings and networking parties here, head back to the UK tomorrow - and will probably be back soon, given the friendly reception in SF and the Valley. All of these companies can be found in CrunchBase. Read about them after the jump (and in no particular order)…

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/277233674/