Ajax Girl

EMC Corporation is announcing the creation of a new subsidiary this morning called Decho (for Your Digital Echo), which has been formed from the assets of two acquisitions: Mozy (acquired in September 2007) and PI Corporation (acquired in February 2008).

The new company is focused on protecting and managing personal digital data. It will continue to offer Mozy’s personal backup product and will add new products over time. The Mozy platform, which now stores over 10 petabytes of user data, has over a million users, 200,000 of which are paying customers. We were particularly impressed with its Mac product, first launched in mid-2007.

There isn’t much information on what new applications the company will launch. But if PI Corp. is anything to go on, look for rich metadata and contextual information to be a part of it. PI Corp. was acquired before launching their flagship storage/backup product. But their website suggests they are far more focused on managing, organizing and searching files than simply backing them up - something Mozy never tackled. The combination of the two platforms is more than interesting.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/btaRSFDjY1s/

Adobe’s Flash Player is on 98 percent of all desktop computers, but it is still struggling to make the jump to mobile phones. If you want Flash on a mobile device, right now you have to settle for a compromised version: Flash Lite. But Adobe is committed to bring the full Flash Player experience to mobile phones, as evidenced by its Open Screen Project. On Monday, at its Adobe MAX developer conference, it will demonstrate Flash Player 10 running on a Windows Mobile phone. (However, Flash won’t actually ship on Windows Mobile until late next year). Product manager Michele Turner tells me:

We will be showing the first delivery of Flash on mobile phones, on other platforms. You will see it on Windows Mobile.

Turner also indicates that an “Android port” is coming. But what about the iPhone, which famously doesn’t use Flash? (Although there’s been some talk of that happening). Turner will only say:

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2MR3DOQd99c/

Facebook just added another extremely useful feature for users, and in doing so took out a slew of applications that do that same thing. You can now get a weekly email telling you, simply, which friends have birthdays coming up.

That’s good news for all of us who want more birthday information. It’s bad news for Birthday Alert and its clones that already do that on Facebook. Birthday Alert has 180,820 active monthly users.

Lest you think this is just some random feature: Birthdays are big business. Bebo founders Michael and Xochi Birch started their social network Bebo with a simple birthday reminder service. That service had 100 million users at one point and still brings in $4 million per year in revenue from ecards and gift purchases. Bebo was funded in the early days from birthday reminder revenue.

The title of this post is meant to be a joke, but it definitely sucks to be one of the very many birthday reminder Facebook apps today. Such is life. With a flick of the keyboard Facebook can make your app redundant and pointless. Meanwhile, I happily turned on the new feature, and I can’t wait to be prompted to send people virtual birthday gifts for a small fee.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7gJ19XUe-BM/

“More effective, useless.” The Devil is in the details.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1403-more-effective-useless-the-devil-is-in-the-details

We all know online advertising decelerated in the third quarter, but how bad was the slowdown overall? To find out, I added up the online advertising revenues for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, which together account for the majority of online advertising. In the third quarter, growth pretty much ground to a halt. The combined ad revenues of those four Web bellwethers eked out only 0.6 percent growth, quarter over quarter. That sequential growth rate was 12.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, to 2.8 percent in the first quarter of 2008, and 1.1 percent in the second quarter (see chart above).

On an absolute basis, the combined ad revenues for all four companies during the third quarter increased by only $50 million to $8.2 billion. The year-over-year growth rate was still a healthy 18 percent, but those comparisons will likely flatten out as well starting in the fourth quarter.

For the purposes of this analysis, I took the total advertising revenues from both Google and Yahoo, including their network revenues paid to affiliates, the online revenues reported by Microsoft, and only the advertising portion of AOL’s revenues. There were other companies I could have added, but these four serve as good proxy for the overall online advertising market. Below are the absolute revenue numbers, broken down by company:

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/eGn4TE64T3Y/

This is the image that comes up when people try to access Wikipedia.de, which used to be forwarded to Wikipedia.org. It reads:

The county court of Luebeck (North Germany) has issued an order in the name of Lutz Heilmann, Member of Parliament (left party/post-communist) that the German Wikipedia (Wikimedia e.V.) must not allow linking its domain wikipedia.de to the Web site wikipedia.org, as long as the German language version of wikipedia.org makes certain statements.

According to OhMyNews, these statements include Heilmann’s past as a member of the Stasi - the former official secret police of East Germany - as well as allegations that he has threatened an ex-boyfriend.

An earlier report from Focus Online (article in German) says Heilmann objected to claims that he had interrupted his studies at university, and that he had participated in a business venture involving pornography.

Heilmann also took legal action against three Wikipedia users who had worked on the article.

Of course, ordering a court to take such extreme measures only draws more attention to the entry, which is still available both in English and German since the Wikipedia servers are hosted in Florida under United States law.

The entry for Lutz Heilmann is currently ranked number 1 on wikirage’s list of Wikipedia entries that are receiving the most edits per unique editor over various periods of time.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/32TEQyvhbZs/

Google’s voice recognition search application for the iPhone, originally set for launch on Friday, will likely go live sometime Monday, we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the situation.

Google was under the impression that the application would be live on the App Store on Friday (obviously, since they pushed all significant press attention to it). Sometime Friday they found out Apple wouldn’t be pushing it, despite the fact that Google submitted it for review earlier in the week and got a thumbs up for Friday. One source says they’ve had little direct contact with Apple during the review, instead getting their updates via the standard iPhone developer tool, which has said “in review” for the last few days.

Who knows why Apple delayed the application, or why they tend to treat every application developer equally poorly.

But in this case Apple really screwed up in our opinion.

If the application is half as good as the demo video shows, Google has done something pretty amazing with voice recognition and mobile platforms. This application will, quite simply, sell iPhones. Lots of them.

Google faced a decision on which mobile platform to first launch the application - the iPhone or their own Android. The fact that they decided to launch first on the iPhone shows a willingness to embrace what’s right for the user, and it’s something that few other companies would have done. Google could have launched for the Android first and pushed sales of phones on their platform. They didn’t, and Apple should have embraced them for that.

Next time I expect Google won’t be so trusting. And I don’t blame them.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/agfJKCuYr2U/

Google’s carefully orchestrated launch of their new voice-recognition search application for the iPhone took a dive this weekend. The application didn’t appear as promised, and Google took down the YouTube video demo’ing the product (although it’s still on the Google Channel YouTube page and embedded below).

This is an extraordinary event. Other search app providers have told me they’ve been kept waiting months for approval of their app, with no explanation from Apple. But Google and Apple are close, even sharing Google CEO Eric Schmidt as a board member. Something definitely went sideways, most likely involving Apple throwing a fit of some sort (Apple is just plain weird about press).

Note our report last week that Apple seems to be working on some sort of search product of their own for the iPhone.

Meanwhile, lets all hope that the drama ends soon and that we wake up on Sunday to a fully available application. It’s reason alone to own an iPhone. Hell, I want it on my desktop.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2l6E1e9Q8Ko/

AOL is on a product-cutting spree. In addition to the shuttering of XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile And Bluestring, the company will also be shutting down the AOL Video Uploads service starting this week.

Users must move their videos prior to December 18, when the service closes for good and the videos will no longer be available. AOL is recommending that users transfer videos to Motionbox, a New York based video sharing and editing startup that we first covered in 2006.

The FAQ that AOL will distribute to users this week is below. This change doesn’t appear to affect AOL Video itself, which focuses on professional content from Hulu, CBS and other sources.

AOL Video Uploads

Q. When will the AOL Video Uploads close?

Effective December 18th, 2008 , AOL Video Uploads (uncutvideo.aol.com ) will be closed and all videos stored will no longer be accessible through AOL Video Uploads. AOL has evaluated several personal video offerings, and believes Motionbox, a leader in online personal video, to be the best suited to handle the needs of AOL Video Upload users. Motionbox is FREE and includes some great features.

We are recommending users go through a simple transfer process to move their videos to Motionbox, and also giving them the option to download or delete videos stored on the site.

Q. When/how will users be notified?

A. Anyone who has stored videos on AOL Video Uploads will receive an official AOL e-mail the week of November 17, 2008.

Q. What are the options for retrieving video from AOL Video Uploads?

A. AOL recommends users transfer their videos to Motionbox, a free service that supports all of the features users enjoy with AOL Video Uploads.

Basic Motionbox service is FREE and includes:

- Easy transfer of your existing videos from AOL Video Uploads.
- High-quality video playback, with full-screen viewing options.
- Sharing, with privacy settings to help protect your content.
- Fast, reliable uploads of almost any video format.
- Simple editing and mixing tools so you can trim and combine video clips.
- Video embedding on your blog, profile page, or Web site.

Additionally, users may download or delete their videos from the AOL Video Uploads before December 18, 2008.

Q. What happens to videos if users do not take action before December 18, 2008?

A. After December 18, 2008, users will no longer be able to access videos through the AOL Video Uploads site. However, before December 18, AOL can help users move their existing videos to Motionbox® to continue accessing them online. Users may also download files from AOL Video Uploads or delete them.

If a user doesn’t delete the video or transfer to Motionbox, it will be removed from AOL Video Uploads as part of the closing of the service.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8cbLyIP1fno/