tech now |
- After Teasing Us At CES, Withings Enters The Fitness Tracking War With The $99 Pulse
- How APIs Help Us Comprehend The Infinite Concept Of Data
- Source: Snapchat Snaps Up $80M From IVP At An $800M Valuation
- Virtuix Omni Takes Virtual Reality In Every Direction
- Today's Acqui-Hires Will Become Tomorrow's Innovators
- RIP Snapjoy: The Dropbox-Acquired Photo Service Is Shutting Down
- CrunchWeek: Instagram Video; 3D Printing Startup MakerBot's Big Exit, And More Cash For Fab
- Stripe's Payments Payout Technology For Collaborative Consumption Startups Now Processing Up To $500K Per Day
- RSS Readersplosion Shows A Lot Of Skating To Where The Puck Has Been
- Facebook Adds Like Button To Mobile Messages, A One-Touch “OK”
- FTC To Review Google's Waze Acquisition On Antitrust Grounds
- Gillmor Gang: Mo' Beta Blues
| After Teasing Us At CES, Withings Enters The Fitness Tracking War With The $99 Pulse Posted: 23 Jun 2013 09:08 AM PDT  And the battle to build quantified self gadgets rages on. The newest entrant is one that isn’t exactly new to the space — Withings has been churning out smart scales and body analyzers since 2009, but it recently decided to set it sights on Fitbit and Jawbone with a new, $99 wearable fitness tracker called the Pulse. The particulars should sound familiar: the Pulse is a tiny (it weighs in at 8 grams) thing with a touch-sensitive OLED display that’s worn on your person and measures the steps you’ve taken, calories you’ve burned, and how long you’ve slept. Oh, and to top it off, you can press your finger to the Pulse’s rear end to figure out your heart rate. Neat trick. Familiar though that formula may be, Withings brings something rather neat to the table though: a hardware ecosystem (if a small one). The company’s background in smart scales means it’s capable of adding some crucial context to the activity data the Pulse is able to collect — a more accurate picture of a person’s fitness level and the effect it actually has on the body. Media darling Fitbit has so far struck to a similar strategy, albeit one that ran in reverse — the company spent years honing its Fitbit wearables before releasing the Aria scale in 2012. That said, Withings is no stranger to cooperation with other quantified self players either. Companies like Fitbit and Jawbone have made it a point to partner with Withings so they can incorporate weight data into users’ accounts. It’s a natural fit considering that a person’s weight represents a crucial bit of information that those company’s respective gadgets can’t really figure out on their own. Honestly though, for a company that’s been nothing if not eager to add value to other wearable gadgets, it’s a little strange to see Withings take a shot at the market themselves. These days it seems like nearly every fitness-focused company is trying reinvent to the pedometer, but it takes some serious expertise to turn a pint-sized selection of sensors and components into a product worth using. The development process may have been a bumpy one too — Withings first showed off that activity tracker (encased in Plexiglass no less) back in Las Vegas at CES 2013, and here we are about five months later with only the option to pre-order the thing. For all the question marks that come with the Pulse, Withings may actually be onto something here. If the company can nail the experience of aggregating data across its hardware lineup and feeding it all into its accompanying app (not to mention the 100 or so partner apps floating around out there), Withings may just be able to pull ahead of a sizable pack. |
| How APIs Help Us Comprehend The Infinite Concept Of Data Posted: 23 Jun 2013 01:00 AM PDT  Data is like oil. It only has a future value just sitting in a big pool. “Pure data,” as my fellow panelists said Friday night at API Days, has not proven to have much market play. I agreed with them but it’s the wrong way to look at the matter. More so, it’s about how the data is processed and refined. Explore that dimension and it’s apparent that a data economy has emerged that has the virtual equivalence in power to oil and its impact everywhere. But like oil, people don’t immediately equate data with everyday products or services. They know the data is there, but its uses are as infinite as space and its endless possibilities. How to understand the impact of data as an infinite concept is an intellectual exercise. That’s an important pursuit, but in our world, we need relevance to drive understanding. The API has emerged as the means for connecting software and services. It serves as an intellectual vehicle for understanding how we can connect anything to make new things. And so it makes sense that the API itself is also discussed in an economic context. For example, the theme for API Days was all about the “API Economy.” APIs are tangible because they are real. “Big data” is just a term. It has no meaning because it is not really anything at all. But an API is something that people use to connect services like Twitter, Facebook or Dropbox. The quantified-self movement relies on APIs to connect the data from our bodies to apps that give people new ways to measure their health. Netflix supports more than 1,000 devices with its API. About 20,000 developers use the Netflix API. In an oil-based economy, industrial processes help make gasoline for cars or fibers for clothing. Data-driven processes help developers build software. And APIs connect that software to create new types of services that span the physical and virtual world. 3SCale Co-Founder Steve Willmott presented at API Days. His theory: software is eating the world and APIs are eating software. But by itself software has limited value. Connect it and the software turns things into programmable nodes. By itself, data is irrelevant. The enterprise model has demonstrated that software on-premise has limited value when isolated in silos. But connect it with APIs, and transformations can occur that just were not possible before. But are we just using the concept of an economy to describe anything that is data related? The Internet economy, the API economy, the app economy — the list goes on. All of these concepts have merit and relevance. But it is data that is the most important driver. I use the term “API Economy” quite a bit but to show its relevance to a world that is connecting things. Behind it all, it’s data that drives changes to the way we live and work. So, yes, I agree that pure data has almost no value. But thinking of data in the context of APIs is more relevant to the way we work and live. |
| Source: Snapchat Snaps Up $80M From IVP At An $800M Valuation Posted: 22 Jun 2013 11:54 PM PDT  It’s the second day of summer, and Snapchat has raised an $80 million Series B round at an $800 million pre-money valuation, according to a source. The phat Series B round was led by Institutional Venture Partners, according to multiple sources, after being sought after by many other top-tier Valley VCs. After putting in its dough, IVP ends up with roughly 9 percent of the company and hooks up with Benchmark and Lightspeed, Snapchat’s existing backers. Contrary to prior reports, including ours, the $880 million post-money valuation is considerably less than $1 billion and considerably more than the half that originally demarcated. The company will also not be using the money to build an oversized salesforce. I have no idea where that one came from. My guess is that Snapchat founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy will use the new money to continue to scale their foothold on the Ephemeralnet, as more people over Snapchat’s gateway, 20-something demographic realize that capturing random moments and sending them to their friends briefly (and disposably) is the cool thing to do. Five of my friends Snapchatted me tonight; I am over 30, and so are they. |
| Virtuix Omni Takes Virtual Reality In Every Direction Posted: 22 Jun 2013 10:00 PM PDT  Editor's note: Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive. Follow him on Twitter @rossrubin. Now that there are enough wearable sensors on the market to track one activity per day each week, we've seen some sensor-based products turn their attention to chilling out already. There's the Melon headband that helps determine how you best focus, Phyode's W/Me wristband that aims to monitor a broad aspect of your physical state, and the PIP that uses a combination of software and biofeedback to help you learn how to de-stress. At least one project owner is gearing up to add another technological tool to the active arsenal. Part videogame accessory and part exercise equipment, the Virtuix Omni was inspired by the success of Kinect a few years ago, itself a response to the "Wiimote controller" that defined Nintendo's last gaming console. While both products get you off the couch, they don't necessarily give you any place to go once you're there. Just like virtual reality goggles expand the viewing area beyond what is possible with conventional displays, the Omni expands where one can walk in conventional rooms where games are played. It is an omnidirectional treadmill. Indeed, the success of the crowdfunded Oculus Rift virtual reality headset that netted over $2.4 million on Kickstarter convinced inventor Jan Goetgeluk that the funding site would be a good route to market for a technology that had seen a lot of IP patents filed but few consumer products. Backers, many of whom were undoubtedly idle on their chairs as they pledged, were driven by promise (and perhaps a bit of guilt) to meet the initial funding goal in three-and-a-half hours. Two weeks and still with a month to go, the campaign has raised $860,000. As is the case for Oculus, gaming is only the first market for Omni, which can be used in simulations, training and other applications. Even better, unlike the Oculus Rift, which has elements of input and output and requires that games be modified for compatibility, the input-only Omni is compatible with PC games out of the box and is much easier to demonstrate. Nevertheless, while both products are slated to ship in consumer versions in early 2014, VR is still a niche market. Part of the reason for the reality check relates to the Omni's size (about that of a standard treadmill although it's designed to be disassembled quickly) and price, which will be around $500 or $600. That will make it more expensive than either of the next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft launching in the fall, with the latter including a souped-up version of Kinect. In addition, while using a Kinect can also require a wide berth, the Omni has its share of encumbrances during use, including a belt and shoes that require special soles. (The company is partnering with an existing shoe manufacturer for the uppers.) And competition is already using crowdfunding to compete with the Omni. A simpler, smaller and cheaper omnidirectional surface called the WizDish developed in London dispenses with the Omni's frame and integrated sensor. The WizDish is expected to ship before the end of the year for less than $300, but a demonstration video on its Kickstarter page has a first-timer stepping onto it as one a wet bathtub surface with a remote voice urging the user to be "really careful." In these early days of omnidirectional treadmills, the feature sets — as well as some of the users — will struggle for balance. |
| Today's Acqui-Hires Will Become Tomorrow's Innovators Posted: 22 Jun 2013 06:00 PM PDT  Editor’s note: Peter Relan is a former programmer and Internet executive, as well as a successful serial entrepreneur, Silicon Valley executive, angel investor, and technology veteran for over 25 years. He founded YouWeb Incubator in 2007, spinning out a string of successful mobile and gaming companies. Follow him on Twitter @prelan. There is no doubt about the unprecedented wealth of talent in Silicon Valley, both technical and entrepreneurial. The area has become known as a mecca, and for some the Wild West, of digital innovation. So many entrepreneurs migrate to the Valley in hopes of building the next Facebook or Twitter, and technical talent and engineers are the bread and butter making this possible. Most of the engineers that come out here after finishing school or graduating from local universities like Stanford or Berkeley have the desire, at some point, to start their own companies. Most of these engineers, however, will find this a daunting task better left for a few years down the road and seek to find their bearings by joining a small but promising startup. This wealth of talent has led to an idea that you’ve certainly heard a lot about by now: the acqui-hire, the acquisition of a company purely for its talent. Yahoo, Google, Twitter and Facebook are the main companies behind acqui-hires and overall acquisitions over the last couple of years, which has led to many young startups, alongside their handful of rock star engineers, being gobbled up into a new organizational structure. The next Jack Dorsey is probably already in Silicon Valley but is not currently an entrepreneur.Make no mistake — even successful M&A deals often leave VCs and founders well compensated. But other senior and mid-level team members are often hungry for more, having tasted some success but are nowhere near ready to retire. Thus, the next Jack Dorsey is probably already in Silicon Valley but is not currently an entrepreneur. Rather, they are biding their time working within a bigger tech titan, dreaming about something bigger. It seems an innocuous-enough practice, but the acqui-hire and overall M&A trend is the reason behind my conviction that the next big company will be founded by someone who is currently working at one of Silicon Valley's top tech companies, but who may never been a founder themselves. Here’s Why What's unique about this moment in Silicon Valley history is the sheer number of engineers in companies like these that have been brought in through acquisitions, or the increasingly popular acqui-hire. Big companies will acquire smaller, hungrier startups that have great teams with great talent and put these minds to work on existing initiatives. Tim Cook has even publicly stated that this has been Apple's strategy — to bring in companies that not only contribute a product but a superior team to add value — and it has averaged an acquisition almost every other month for three years. I’ve been running an incubator for six years, and I’ve observed something interesting. While Peter Thiel’s 20 under 20 program is fascinating and holds promise, and Y Combinator has a great track record for bringing young entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley, there is an untapped group of potential founders who are milling about right under our noses. These individuals, likely engineers and product managers in their late 20s or early 30s, have hard skills working at a startup, an understanding of the market, and are drawn to entrepreneurship but are slightly more risk-averse. These future founders may not have track records as the founders or CEOs of companies with exits, but they have worked for a startup and now a large company. They understand what it means to build a product, and they also understand what scale looks and feels like now that they have worked at Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter or Google. You need both for the maximum probability of success in building The Next Big Thing. Many entrepreneurs have seen the former — it's the easier part — and it's why Y Combinator is able to pull 50+ companies a class with the seeds of a product already built. Where many entrepreneurs fail, however, is during the scaling stage, as it's very difficult to get it right if you haven't seen it done before. Of course, other types of founders can succeed, too, but the maximum probability of success is in this type of founder. The Company Matters When I say, "working for a company that is highly innovative," I mean companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook. Google because it has an agenda, which, as Larry Page put it, is "to build great things that don't exist"; Facebook because it has the highly iterative hack-and-break things mentality; and Twitter because it’s had to innovate a lot to figure out its monetization models. Google and Facebook are examples of companies that truly stand apart from the rest and empower their employees, but in slightly different ways — one being a corporate goliath with high ideals to change the world, and the other a big startup that is constantly thinking of better ways to optimize and re-engineer an idea. Yahoo is getting there, as well, under Marissa Mayer. It's why many founders have come from these companies, including Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann who worked in customer support and sales for Google, when he decided to leave to start his own venture. It's not that Ben did not like Google, but just as most entrepreneurs, he wanted more. Another example of a team being acquired, working for their acquirer, and then breaking out to develop their own companies are members from the former AdMob team, which was acquired by Google in 2009. Two members of this team who went on to found companies of their own were Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, who founded self-learning, cross-device ad company Drawbridge, and Mike Mettler, founder of Card.io, which was acquired last year by PayPal. This is a great example of two entrepreneurs working from the ground up, seeing and feeling what scale truly feels like, who went into bigger companies and decided that they had what it took to build their own companies. And it worked. What's unique about both Facebook and Google is the fact that both have a bottom-up, technically driven culture where they designate a specific amount of time for employees to work on projects they like, encouraging the engineers to take time to work creatively on new, non-initiative products that can spur creativity and new ideas or approaches that might not have otherwise been pursued. I had lunch with a founder that came out of my incubator that was recently acquired by Facebook, and he had nothing but the highest praise for the hacker way of the entire company and how it works there. In his essay "The Hacker Way," Mark Zuckerberg defines a hacker as a person who is never finished with their work, believing that there is always room for improvement no matter what the product. This is the vision of the CEO. This is how the company is run, and, for the most part, this is how the majority of the engineers at Facebook feel and operate. Imagine this situation: You worked for a startup for a year or two, you've gone through an acquisition (or acqui-hire) and you now are settled (more than you probably would like to be) in this big company. You’ve been there a year or two and you were then asked to come up with an “intrapreneur” project that you want to drive to scale. What if, as an engineer at Google, you use your weekly 20 percent time to develop and create an idea or product that you're incredibly passionate about. What better training can you possibly get to be a future founder? Now add the second ingredient: accelerators popping up everywhere. Despite my prediction that most will fail to do well for their investors, I add that they are great for the U.S. and the world. Well-trained future founders with access to seed capital and mentorship equals a great recipe for creating startups. While Google, Facebook and Twitter do a fantastic job of acquiring and then retaining rock-star engineers at their bottom-up, technically driven companies, I predict it will be these specific folks who will drive the next evolution of Silicon Valley. Their experience within an innovative big company, coupled with their amazing network and time to think about a problem/solution while being paid a nice salary, makes for the best recipe to build something that succeeds. It is on the heels of this trend that the next Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk or Steve Jobs will appear. [Image via Shutterstock] |
| RIP Snapjoy: The Dropbox-Acquired Photo Service Is Shutting Down Posted: 22 Jun 2013 04:51 PM PDT  Snapjoy, the online photo storage service that Dropbox acquired in December, has some bad news today for its users: it is shutting down. The company noted the information in a blog post, as well as in an email it’s currently sending out to users (I am among them: I’m copying the text below). Users have until July 24 to download their pictures and related data — at which point, they will all get deleted. Yes, it’s often the case that when a big company makes an acquisition of a smaller one, the latter business gets shut down, either because the purchase was really an acqui-hire or because the bigger company is prepping for, well, something bigger with the fruits of that product. (Yahoo has become a very regular buyer and closer of startups, with many of those questions about where all that talent and product is going still unanswered.) But this is a somewhat surprising turn of events for Snapjoy: when Dropbox bought the company, it stopped taking new sign ups but it also committed to keeping the service open. Given that decision to keep Snapjoy running, it looked like part of the reason for that acquisition was for Dropbox to start developing a photo service of its own, with Snapjoy as the anchor for it. (For those who are not familiar with Snapjoy, the Y-Combinator-backed company is/was a great platform that not only let users amalgamate pictures from several different photo libraries — great for people like me who have dabbled in using several, and have stored pictures in all of them — but it then had a wonderful feature that called up pictures from that bigger group in a kind of slideshow, to remind you of long-forgotten events. All of this was usable on both the web and via a mobile app.) It may still end up being the case that Snapjoy’s technology will live to see another day, and that Dropbox will indeed launch a photo service — it seems like an obvious move for the company as it moves to do more than just offer cloud storage, by providing different services on top of that infrastructure. However, today’s news means that it won’t be a continuous process for Snapjoy’s existing users, or indeed for Snapjoy the product. The news points to a couple of bigger issues: For those who sometimes feel uneasy about cloud anything, this once again highlights that your cloud-stored data is only as solid as the proprietary platform that is storing it. Once that company decides to call it a day, that’s all, folks. The other is regarding the message that this sends out to users of other Dropbox services — particularly those that Dropbox has acquired, like Mailbox. So far, Dropbox has shown no signs of planning to shut the virally-popular email service down, but Snapjoy should serve as a reminder that a picture can change in a snap. We have reached out to Dropbox for comment and will update this post as we learn more.
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| CrunchWeek: Instagram Video; 3D Printing Startup MakerBot's Big Exit, And More Cash For Fab Posted: 22 Jun 2013 03:00 PM PDT  It's that time of the week for a new episode of CrunchWeek, the weekly show where three of us writers plop ourselves down in the TechCrunch TV studio for some real talk about the most interesting stories from the past seven days. This week you’ll notice that we decided to shoot the show from the middle of the TechCrunch office in San Francisco for a change of scenery. My fellow TechCrunchers, Ryan Lawler, and Colleen Taylor, joined me in discussing the big news of the week from Facebook and Instagram: Instagram Video. As revealed yesterday, in the first 24 hours after the switch was flipped, Instagram saw 5 million videos uploaded. Also on the docket this week: the $403 million acquisition of Brooklyn-based 3D printing company MakerBot, and Fab raising $150 million more in funding at a $1 billion valuation. Check out the video above for more! |
| Posted: 22 Jun 2013 02:00 PM PDT  A few weeks ago, payments startup Stripe made it significantly easier for collaborative consumption startups to take and process payments. The company’s new technology allowed for payments to be distributed to multiple bank accounts, which is an issue for startups like Lyft, which are attempting to pay drivers with different accounts from the accounts of users. Stripe says that the service has taken off, and the company is now paying out up to $500,000 per day in these payouts to collaborative consumption startups alone. To put that in perspective on the Stripe side of the equation, the payments company processes “millions” of dollars in transaction volume a day. But whether that number is $5 million or $10 million, half a million is a big chunk of change for collaborative consumption startups. So why has this specific payments technology grown so fast in adoption? It’s mainly because of the challenges these startups face in paying out money to workers, says Stripe CEO Patrick Collison. When a buyer of a service (i.e. a person using Lyft for transportation) pays, the money can only be transferred to one account. So Lyft has to have payments sent to their own account, and then sent to the driver (i.e. the seller). According to Stripe, using the previous system, Lyft would require 10 full-time employees to manage payments to and relationships with their drivers. With Stripe's new technology, you can insert a few lines of code into your app, and you will enable the ability to add multiple accounts to where money can be sent. Users of Payouts include Lyft, Exec, Sidecar, Postmates, Homejoy, Kitchensurfing, HomePolish, Flightfox, Weddings.com, and Shoptiques. Collison adds, “The part of Stripe that I’ve always found most interesting is the idea of facilitating new commerce that wouldn’t otherwise happen. Payouts is turning out to be a big part of that. These new networks are efficient, intelligent replacements for offline behemoths. It’s a cliché to say stuff like ‘I can’t wait to see what gets built,’ but I think the companies created with Payouts are really going to be transformative.” Part of Stripe’s allure as a payments platform is that the company’s API, and integration is extremely simple and easy to use for developers. As many developers have commented, using Stripe allows an online site to accept payments in a matter of minutes. With Payouts, we’re seeing the company take this strategy a step further by now making transactions themselves more seamless for users in a specific vertical. You have to wonder if we’re going to see Stripe go after the specific pain points of verticals in the payments space, especially in areas of innovation (i.e. collaborative consumption) where there is fast growth. Stay tuned. |
| RSS Readersplosion Shows A Lot Of Skating To Where The Puck Has Been Posted: 22 Jun 2013 12:00 PM PDT  Google Reader is turning off the lights in just over a week’s time, but people will have no shortage of alternative options when it does die, since everyone and their brother is building an RSS reader to fill the perceived gap. It’s hard to blame them; when Google announced the shutdown of Reader, it was as if millions of voices on the Internet suddenly cried out in terror, and were not silenced. If people are literally asking for a product en masse, that’s probably something a product team in search of a project is going to hang their hat on. But is that the right move? Granted, there’s an appetite, and an apparent need out there, and a huge user base primed and ready to adopt a new RSS reader product. But there’s also plenty of existing supply, from people who have been in the business longer, including Feedly. And there’s also a reason Google exited the business to begin with, one that, while probably specific to Google itself, should at least have others like Aol and Betaworks giving serious thought to long-term product viability. Google is closing Reader likely because the product doesn’t align with its larger goals, and because it would rather funnel people to other content-discovery products in its roster, like Google+ specifically. Reader is hard to monetize, and probably requires a lot of engineering resources devoted to maintenance, troublehooting and tech support. And Google, while widespread in its ambitions, is also not squeamish about cutting its losses with peripheral products that don’t achieve quite the critical mass or results they’re looking for. Betaworks is likewise a company with far-ranging interests, but it does put a lot of focus on building the next generation of news and information-gathering products, so a reader is a good fit. And Aol is more and more a media company, so in many ways building a reader is a natural direction for growth for it, too. But building a product that a more successful Internet giant is killing still seems like a backwards move, even if in the short term, it’s being hailed as a clever, opportunistic way to capitalize on clearly expressed demand. Despite the Digg team’s claim that they’d been planning to build a reader-type product before the Google announcement, both products can’t help but seem intensely reactionary, and reaction is never a good look for companies that we expect to be pushing the envelope in terms of innovation. Plus, I’m still of the opinion that the outcry for Reader’s death was from a small, vocal minority centered in the tech community, not something that represents a huge open ocean of general consumer need. Not to mention that the sudden glut of options will segment a market I suspect is already small and getting broken up into even more rarefied pieces (especially if Facebook also throws its hat in the ring). One of these companies could offer a twist that prompts a revival and renewed interest, but I think it’s much more likely these products will appeal to a circumscribed audience of people feeling the loss of Reader acutely, not making overtures to brand-new users. If that’s innovation these days, then innovation bores me. |
| Facebook Adds Like Button To Mobile Messages, A One-Touch “OK” Posted: 22 Jun 2013 11:01 AM PDT  “Alright”, “Yes”, and the much-hated “k” just got a visual redesign. Facebook’s iOS and Android apps have rolled out the option in messages to reply with a one-tap thumbs-up Like button sticker. It’s a highly-functional flourish that replaces the greyed-out Send button when you haven’t typed anything. And while it seems simple, I’m finding it quite satisfying. Facebook confirms with me that the “Like Reply” button, as I’m calling it, was “part of a recent update”. However, it doesn’t appear to have been included in any of the “What’s New” release notes. That meshes with my suspicion that Facebook sometimes adds new mobile features and either doesn’t announce them, or notes them a few updates after they appear. Cheeky. The Like Replies are now available in Facebook and Messenger for iOS and Android, plus m.facebook.com, but not on desktop. Update: Path 3 had this feature first. It was included in the Path 3 update a few months ago. Path design uses a checkmark which I find to be a lot more ambiguous than the thumbs-up. Still, considering Facebook also added stickers soon after Path did, there may be a fast-follow trend emerging. Distilled CommunicationStickers have blown up recently as people search for quick and vivid way to share emotions while mobile messaging. But usually you have to dig those out of a menu. Meanwhile, texting was built for efficient communication. One of the most common things you have to communicate is an ‘affirmative’. Yes to whatever you just said. I agree. I approve. I acquiesce. And so “k” was born. A one-letter affirmative. But it still requires several clicks. To open the messaging field, to type the letter, and to send it. But *BAM*, the Like Reply button does it in a single gesture. Facebook even has a Like button thumbs-up sticker, but this makes it instantly accessible in the right situations. The bright blue one on Android looks especially sharp. Yes, this will save you one second. But it could save you and everyone else that one second hundreds of times, multiplied by 750 million mobile users a month. Efficiency matters. I’ve always wanted this for text messaging. Actually, not just for replies but as way to signal to people that was lighter-weight than a text message. I called it the “nudge”. A little buzz, even more subtle than an SMS. If I said I’d pick you up in 10 minutes, and you get a nudge 11 minutes later, it means come outside. If it’s late and I want to see if you’re up, I might nudge you. If I’m free to meet up with friends and want to ping a bunch of them? Mass nudge. Much less annoying than “Hey guys wanna hang out with me? I’m lonely.” This is nice step towards my dream of openly interpretable binary communication. Try it out next time you need to confirm something via Facebook message. We’ll see if it catches on. |
| FTC To Review Google's Waze Acquisition On Antitrust Grounds Posted: 22 Jun 2013 10:15 AM PDT  Google’s $1.1 billion acquisition of social mapping startup Waze has drawn the attention of the Federal Trade Commission after all. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Google has been contacted by FTC lawyers intending to conduct an antitrust review of the acquisition. Google declined to comment but did confirm to the WSJ that it has been contacted by the FTC over the deal. The news was reported earlier by the New York Post which cited two sources “close to the situation”. According to the WSJ, which said it talked to lawyers familiar with government antitrust investigations, the FTC may have asked Google not to integrate with Waze, pending its review. It also notes that Waze's revenue was too low to trigger an automatic review by the FTC — but that does not stop the agency stepping in to examine deals after they close, as it now has. Google stepped in and picked up Waze earlier this month, ending months of acquisition rumours in which the service had been linked with a variety of other suitors — including Facebook, Apple and even Microsoft. In the end Mountain View walked away with Waze’s crowdsourced traffic data — saying it intends to incorporate Waze’s data into its Google Maps product, likely to enhance the traffic prediction feature. Google also said some of its own mapping technology will be incorporated into Waze. Whatever else Mountain View plans for Waze’s team and data remains to be seen, but there are plenty of areas for Google to explore. So why is the FTC getting involved now? Google’s purchase of Waze may have attracted the FTC’s attention because its own mapping service is already so dominant globally, with some billion users vs the 45 million app downloads Waze had previously reported. By buying Waze Google removes a potential competitor to its service — assuming Waze could have grown its user-base to become a head-to-head competitor with Google Maps. The WSJ reports that the FTC would have to determine whether Waze could have managed to challenge Google in that way, or whether there is any evidence showing Google wanted to acquire Waze specifically to prevent a rival buying the company. Other mapping competitors to Google include Nokia, which acquired digital mapping service NavTeq for $8.1 billion back in 2007; TomTom which licenses mapping data to Apple; and the non-profit OpenStreetMaps crowdsourced map service, which is free to use. Despite the FTC probe, the WSJ suggests it’s unlikely the FTC will ask Google to unwind the Waze deal — being as it would have to uncover evidence the acquisition would significantly damage competition in the mapping market. |
| Posted: 22 Jun 2013 10:00 AM PDT  The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — welcome the summer solstice with a dip in the gene pool. With Google Glass two months new and iOS7 in developers’ hands, the stage is set for the unification of app notifications across OS and device. Microsoft releases Office for the iPhone, and Facebook Snapchat’s Instagram. But to quote Miles, it’s kind of blue, and so what. Meanwhile most of Glass functionality is already working on iOS7, with just a few weeks (?) until an official launch. With competitors like these, we can look forward to harvesting the fruits of this incredible mobile shift. @stevegillmor, @scobleizer@kteare, @kevinmarks Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor |
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