Ajax Girl

If you had to name the top five image-hosting services on the Web, would ImageShack be one of them? It turns out that it is No. 5 in worldwide visitors, with nearly 28 million last March, according to comScore. (Ranked above it are Facebook Photos, Flickr, Picasa, and PhotoBucket). You might be more familiar with ImageShack’s familiar frog logo, which appears on many of the photos it hosts across the Web.

Sequoia Capital is familiar with ImageShack and its frog. Although it hasn’t been disclosed anywhere, a reliable source tells us that Sequoia recently invested in the company. Sequoia’s investment is believed to be in the $10 million range.

Up until now, ImageShack was entirely self-funded by founder Jack Levin, who built the service himself with his brother and a few part-time employees. The company claims it is already turning a profit (it charges an $8 a month subscription fee for unlimited image uploads). Levin was employee No. 25 or 26 at Google. He was the engineer who built Google’s early server clusters and self-healing architecture. At ImageShack, he has taken a similar approach to creating a site that serves 2.5 billion images a day.

Placing ads on just a fraction of those images could become a much more lucrative business than trying to upsell subscriptions, and that apparently is why Sequoia invested. Figuring out how to put ads in or around images on the Web is a big opportunity. It is a problem that Google (another company Sequoia invested in) is working on. Just earlier today at the Google Factory Tour, for instance, the company noted that hundreds of millions of image searches are done on Google every day and that it is experimenting with both display and text ads paired with image search results. But it is having a tough time.

Someone is going to figure out how to serve relevant ads on all those billions of images on the Web. Sequoia is betting that person will be a former Google employee rather than a current one.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293985845/

Stateless Systems has launched a professional, subscription based version of its hosted content management system CushyCMS.

I interviewed Guy King from Stateless for the CushyCMS launch in April (the post includes a demo video) and he mentioned then that the long-term plan for CushyCMS was to offer a professional subscription version. King tells me that the demand for a professional version of CushyCMS was strong from the day the service launched, so they immediately started building it. As of last week, the free version of CushyCMS has more than 4,600 active users, a tidy number given this isn’t an every day consumer based product.

CushyCMS is a simple content management system that aims to make life easier for web designers by simplifying content management. Web designers use CushyCMS to give content editors (for example a client) access to part, full or many pages at a granular level (headings, images, sidebars, etc), enabling them to update or create standards-compliant content directly from a browser without messing with the sites coding.

CushyCMS Pro is being offered at $28/month and features branding support, including a custom logo, colors and domain (e.g. acmedesign.clienteditor.com). There is no set-up fee or minimum subscription length and both PayPal and AlertPay are accepted.

In addition, several new features have been added to the free version of CushyCMS, including SFTP support (secure FTP), Improved WYSIWYG editor and Support for IIS and other Microsoft-based FTP servers.

Former TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley edits The Inquisitr, a daily dose of tech, pop and penguins.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293971043/

CrowdSound, which launched last week in a public beta, is the latest in a recent batch of web products to join the customer service space. Other contenders include UserVoice, SuggestionBox, GetSatisfaction, and SalesForce IdeaExchange.

The site offers an embeddable Digg-like widget that allows users to submit their suggestions, or to give a “thumbs up” or “down” to comments left by others. After leaving a suggestion, users can opt-in for email updates on the site’s progress. Site administrators can access a dashboard panel that lets them search through suggestions and to assign each with a progress label (”Under Review”, “Completed”, etc.).

The CrowdSound widget seems like it might be useful for small or medium sized companies, but the popularity system will run into problems on a bigger scale. Users will be forced to search through a large number of past suggestions to make sure theirs hasn’t already been created (the site tries to show previous relevant comments, but results are poor if you’ve chosen a different wording than someone else).

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293878252/

More details are emerging on round 2 of Yahoo/Microsoft: Instead of a simple straight up acquisition, Microsoft may be able to pull off a deal where they get to pick off just what they want - search - and leave the rest of Yahoo and it’s troubles behind.

This is a deal that would obviously cost Microsoft much less than a $40+ billion full buyout. And Ballmer could quiet the Microsoft employees and stockholders who were making it known that they hated the original Yahoo deal. At the end of the deal, Microsoft would own Yahoo’s lucrative search and search marketing business, and be a stockholder in the resulting entity. That final version of Yahoo would certainly use Microsoft for at least some of its advertising (Yahoo’s display advertising business may stay with Yahoo).

I suspect a deal will be done quickly - Yahoo’s Yang and supporting board of directors are already being beaten senseless by their own stockholders and they can ill afford another round of incompetence.

If only Yahoo could go back to Febrary 2 and just take Microsoft’s original offer. Everyone but Google would have been better off. In fact, if I were them, I’d be spending half the ongoing negotiations just trying to get Microsoft back to their original offer. Who knows, Ballmer may even go for it.

Also look for Microsoft’s big search announcement on Wednesday at the Advance08 conference.

On Wednesday, we will be announcing a major new initiative that our search teams have been driving. We are getting better and better with our core algorithmic search, and at the same time, we are investing to differentiate in vertical experiences and to disrupt the current model. You’ll hear more about our plans Wednesday.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293822588/

The small screens of mobile devices are blurring the lines between webpages and widgets. So it should come as no surprise that MuseStorm, hitherto a platform for developing widgets for syndication across the web and onto desktops, is coming out with a tool for making iPhone-ready websites.

To be precise, MuseStorm isn’t exactly debuting a new product. Rather, it’s adding iPhone support to its existing Widget Studio, which can be used for a variety of environments ranging from the Facebook platform to the Mac dashboard. But unlike these other environments, the MuseStorm Widget Studio will be free for iPhone developers.

This is a peculiar departure for MuseStorm, which makes its money from charging large corporations on a per-impression or bulk campaign basis. In contrast, widgets made for the iPhone won’t even display advertisements or branding - just the MuseStorm URL.

The creation of MuseStorm widgets for the iPhone consists of the same PowerPoint-like interface users have come to expect. It’s not terribly novice-friendly, since there’s very little in terms of visual aides, and any moderately advanced customization requires knowledge of CSS and access to a server that will host your image and style files (MuseStorm offloads most of the content within its widgets).

I created a test widget for TechCrunch that exhibits the ever-so-stylish “Lazy Day” theme (one of 5 that come pre-packaged) but looks pretty crummy in a desktop browser. Pros of the tool include the ability to work on a live widget and publish changes in bulk. Deep analytics also tell you how many people have viewed your photos, watched your videos, clicked on your RSS feed items, etc.

On the con side of things, the fade and slide transitions chug slowly and there’s no way to have a fixed header (every user interaction involves a complete page change). It would also be good to have a point-and-click CSS editor and custom URL mapping.

If you’re a publisher or marketer looking to reach iPhone-empowered audiences, signup for the service’s private beta period here. The first 250 registrants will get in before public release.

Also see MoFuse, a service for porting websites - and blogs in particular - to the iPhone. More serious developers can also use frameworks like Safire

Consumer-oriented alternatives to MuseStorm include WidgetBox, Wix, and Sprout (although good luck getting the latter two working on the iPhone; they’re based entirely in Flash).

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293819352/

Jealousy doesn’t have to be a negative emotion. It doesn’t have to be a cohort of anger or resentment. All it needs is a dash of hope.

I’ve always been a jealous person. I’ve always wanted things that others had. Skills they possessed. Authority they held. Success they enjoyed. But instead of feeling sorry for myself and grow spiteful of those who had, I found it to be the best motivation to imitate, adopt, and strive for the same rewards.

For me, all it took was a core belief that there was no reason I couldn’t do the same. That there was no such thing as a cosmic conspiracy allowing just a chosen few to prosper and oppressing the many.

I’m saddened every time I meet those who believe to the contrary. I think it’s such a fundamental enabler for achieving more that it almost seems unfair that it’s not a universal instinct instead of an acquired belief.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1033-productive-jealousy

Israeli startup Zend Technologies has fired 25 percent of its R&D team (at least ten people), as well as others across the company, in an attempt to become cash flow positive, says a source close to the company. Zend offers its own distribution of PHP, the popular open-source scripting language for Web applications. It sells software and support services around that (just as Red Hat does with its distribution of Linux). We have an e-mail out to the company asking for a comment.

Update: A spokesperson from the company’s PR firm says: “Yes, I can confirm that Zend made the layoffs, but we cannot comment on the numbers or reasons for the action.”

The job cuts could be an attempt to pretty itself up for a sale. Back in 2006, Oracle wanted to buy it for $100 million to $200 million. It might still be interested. IBM, which already one of Zend’s strategic partners, might also want to take a look.

Another partner is Microsoft, which has already integrated Zend into Windows Server. Thanks to Zend, programmers who don’t want to be bothered with .Net can use PHP instead to create applications that run on Windows Server. If Microsoft ever buys Yahoo, picking up Zend would make even more sense since Yahoo is littered with PHP apps.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293808778/

Last week The Globes’ Noa Pereg interviewed ex-Yahoo CEO Terry Semel (he resigned in June 2007) Shimon Peres’ “President’s Conference” in Israel. Also on the panel was Sergey Brin, Susan Decker, Rupert Murdoch and Yossi Vardi.

Pereg dug to try to get something juicy out of Semel on the Microsoft/Yahoo battle (this was right as Carl Icahn was making his effort to replace the Yahoo board public). The original interview is in Hebrew, but here are some of the translated highlights:

Pereg: But you personally believe that Yahoo is worth more than $44B?

Semel: That question should be directed at Yahoo’s new managers. To Jerry Yang. They seem to think it’s worth more.

Pereg: What’s your opinion about Icahn? It is an attempt to coup the Board of Directors?

Semel: I read about that as well. Icahn is very talented and intelligent, but I don’t know what intentions stand behind the stock buying.

At this point Semel requests to stop the interview for a moment. All these questions about Microsoft are making him feel uncomfortable, and he announces: “I’m not going to talk about the deal. Who should be talking about it is Yang or Susan Decker, the president. Certainly not me.”

Semel also says his departure was based on personal reasons:

Semel: When I began working in Yahoo, my family moved with me. Despite our efforts, our kids wanted to study in Los Angele, and I was forced to see my family and friends only on weekends. In the beginning I even enjoyed it, but knew that at some stage I’d want to go back home. At the time, the people that founded it wanted to get back to it, and that was the right opportunity to go back home and look for new opportunities.

On speculation that his exit was forced:

Semel: These rumors are not true. I told the Board several months in advance that I was going to announce my departure soon, and that I want to set out in a new direction. They offered that I stay as Chairman, and I did agree for a certain time, but at the end felt that I prefer to be an active player than a mentor. It was the right time for me to leave.

On Facebook’s valuation:

Pereg: Is Facebook in your opinion worth $15 billion? Are these prices even logical?

Semel: I have no opinion about it. This is something Microsoft needs to decide on.

On future plans:

Pereg: So what is Semel doing these days?

Semel: I’m busy mostly with in searching for interesting companies in order to purchase and invest in, and I’m certain that they’ll be heard of in the coming years. I also have time to play golf and do some sports.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293802664/

We all have one: It’s that thing that’s been collecting dust in your closet since the mid 90’s. You know it has to be worth something, but you’re worried that posting it on eBay will garner a whopping 99 cents (plus shipping, if you’re lucky). So it continues to sit. Ztail wants to put an end to this problem, and is launching a revamped site that it hopes will serve as pricing guide for everything under the sun.

Conceptually, the site seems like a mix between Antiques Roadshow, The Price is Right, and eBay. To post an item for appraisal users can either enter a description manually, or they can search through a database of over 1 million products provided by Shopping.com that contains default photos and descriptions (users can modify these if they wish). From there, the item is added to Ztail’s “Get Worth” pool, which will present the item to other users and ask for their opinion. Sellers can also create a Ztail widget, which can be embedded in blogs and social networks to collect opinions of friends. After establishing a price, Ztail allows sellers to quickly sell an item on eBay using pre-defined templates.

Prospective buyers can peruse the listings to get a feel for how much each item is worth, which also makes Ztail something of a Kelley’s Blue Book for just about anything.

The site serves both as a tool and a competitive (and potentially addicting) game. As members evaluate the worth of items, they can establish a reputation score based on their accuracy, which is determined by comparing each user’s appraisal to the average. Members can enhance their accuracy score by linking to past eBay auctions, craigslist listings, or store prices to validate the prices they have suggested. This feature is where the site’s real potential lies - if it can establish a hardcore group of professional appraisers for each category, Ztail could become an authoritative resource instead of a casual guide.

Ztail has a great idea, but it’s going to be hard to pull off. Until the site can establish a sizable and credible user-base, prices are going to be highly variable and the site won’t be much of a destination for anyone. That said, the market could really use a guide for “random stuff”. Ebay works well enough for easily-identifiable products like electronics, but for everything else sellers are at the market’s mercy.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293756768/

Now that Google Health has finally launched, I took a quick peek at it while Mark was taking notes at today’s Google Factory Tour presentation. It’s been a long time coming, but at first glance it looks like it will be a strong competitor to existing personal health sites such as Microsoft’s HealthVault (which launched last October), Revolution Health, or Aetna’s SmartSource (via a partnership with Healthline).

The big competition here is between Google Health and Microsoft’s HealthVault. (Revolution Health is more of an information portal at this point, and who is going to trust their health insurance company?). Whereas HealthVault’s strengths seem to lie in tying together different health information silos on the back end, Google Health is focusing more initially on the consumer side. It is trying to do an end-run around the health establishment by trying to get consumers to manually load their own medical information into their profiles. HealthVault allows this as well, but seems to have stronger partnerships with back-end health data providers. Google will no doubt tackle the existing health data silos as it proceeds. It really has no choice if it wants to organize the world’s health information.

To gain consumer acceptance, Google promises never to advertise on Google Health (although ads in related searches should be fair game) and that people’s personal health information will never appear in search results (one would hope not). Members can add their doctors to their Gmail contacts and APis are n the works.

In order for Google Health to be of much use, you need to tell it about your health history by creating a personal medical profile. It is easy enough to get started. You tell it your age, weight, medical conditions, medications, allergies, and so on. It provides guided keyword suggestions, so that when you type in a symptom, for instance, you get a list of health terms.

But the key is importing your medical record in there. That is going to be a huge hurdle in terms of people feeling comfortable giving that sort of data to Google in the first place, and then simply getting the data in an electronic form from their doctors.

Google Health lists only eight partners so far from which it can import medical records, and half of them only cover drugs (Medco, Walgreens, RXAmerica, and Longs Drug Stores). The others are Quest Diagnostics (for lab tests), MinuteClinic from CVS Caremark, and two hospitals: the Cleveland Clinic, and Beth Isreal Deaconness Medical Center.

Even if your doctor sent you a file with your complete medical record, it is not clear that you could upload it (although you could enter it by hand). It also does not let you import data directly from medical devices, a feature that Microsoft’s HealthVault does have.

Google has also created specific in-depth pages for hundreds of health topics. When you enter a condition into your profile, there is a reference link to one of these pages where you can do more research. These are really helpful. They give a summary of the symptoms, treatment, causes, and prevention of different conditions; illustrations where appropriate, as well as links to related news, Google Groups, and search trends. Here is one for “Sciatica,”for instance.

Google Health also lets you link your profile to a number of other online health services. These include ePillBox.info (medication scheduler), a heart attack risk calculator, iHealth, Livestrong.com, MyDailyApple (daily health news), MyMedicalRecords,com, and NoMoreClipboard. If Google Health wants to be the central repository of your online health profile, it needs to allow you to share your profile with as many other services as possible. You are able to grant different levels of permission to each service.

HealthVault has its own list of partner sites (American Heart Association, CapMed, HealthMedia, Healthy Circles, Kryptiq, Peaksware, Pure Wellness,Sound Health Soultions, US Wellness, Podfitness, MyVitalStatistics, Limeade, and Active Health).

Google is planning to open up APIs to Google health to make it easy for other partners to tap into its health platform. And make no mistake about it. That is what this is: a platform. Health apps anyone?

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/293747727/