Archive for January, 2008
Instapaper is a cool new service taking bookmarks back to basics. If you encounter some websites that you want to read but are too busy to do so, you can click on an Instapaper browser bookmarklet and then return to the Instapaper website later to read them. Think of it as Del.icio.us stripped […]
Instapaper is a cool new service taking bookmarks back to basics. If you encounter some websites that you want to read but are too busy to do so, you can click on an Instapaper browser bookmarklet and then return to the Instapaper website later to read them. Think of it as Del.icio.us stripped of any tagging or social features.
Instapaper is a side project of Marco Arment, lead developer at Davidville, which produces the very popular micro-blogging service Tumblr. Here is Marco’s premise for the site:
You come across substantial news or blog articles that you want to read, but don’t have time at the moment.
You need something to read while sitting on a bus, waiting in a line, or bored in front of a personal.
Instapaper has a very easy design; you don’t even need a password or email address to use it. When logged into Instapaper, your links are sorted into three groups: Unread, Recently Read, and Recently Skipped. Buttons on the side help you sort links between the groups. Clicking one of the ‘Unread’ links automatically pushes a site down into the ‘Recently Read’ feature.
Instapaper also plays nice with the iPhone, featuring an optimized interface and the now-obligatory customized web clip.
We’ve covered two other similar bookmarking services recently: WebMynd and ControlC.
[ via John Gruber ]
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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Etsy, the anti-eBay shopping site for handcrafted goods, raised $27 million in a series C round. It previously raised a total of $4.6 million from Union Square Ventures and angels Caterina Fake, Stewart Butterfield, Joshua Schachter, and Albert Wenger. Union Square Ventures invested again in this round, as did new investor Acel Partners. […]
 Etsy, the anti-eBay shopping site for handcrafted goods, raised $27 million in a series C round. It previously raised a total of $4.6 million from Union Square Ventures and angels Caterina Fake, Stewart Butterfield, Joshua Schachter, and Albert Wenger. Union Square Ventures invested again in this round, as did new investor Acel Partners. Accel partner Jim Breyer will take a seat on Etsy’s board (he is also a board member of Facebook). Fake, a founder of Flickr with her husband Butterfield, and Union Square’s Fred Wilson are existing board members. Since launching in June, 2005, Etsy now has 650,000 members, 120,000 of which are craft sellers, in 127 different countries. The Brooklyn-based startup employs 50 people.
Etsy founder Rob Kalin says in a blog post:
This means that we now have the resources to extend Etsy’s reach in this world, to enable so many more people to make a living making things. We want Etsy to exist for hundreds of years. Our goal is for Etsy to be an independent, publicly traded company, focused on all things handmade.
He says that Etsy is “almost break-even” on profits, but he plans on using the money to:
—Buy $5 million worth of hardware and hosting over the next two years.
—Support more currencies and languages other than the U.S. Dollar and English.
—Fix the checkout system (there is none now, every buyer has to pay every seller on an individual basis. There is no Etsy payment system that works across all sellers).
—Fix search.
—Provide a cushion in case of a recession.
—Offer customer service
—Provide competitive wages and take care of his employees.
In other words, Etsy is growing up. And it needs cash to do so. The site reached 1 million unique visitors in the U.S. last month, according to comScore (1.6 million worldwide), doubling from last April.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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SixApart have launched a plugin for MovableType that offers a similar activity stream service to Facebook and Plaxo, but you get to host it. The Action Streams plugin, like Facebook and Plaxo, pulls your data from other services and lists it on the page, for example blog posts, Flickr photos, Tweets and more. The plugin does […]
 SixApart have launched a plugin for MovableType that offers a similar activity stream service to Facebook and Plaxo, but you get to host it.
The Action Streams plugin, like Facebook and Plaxo, pulls your data from other services and lists it on the page, for example blog posts, Flickr photos, Tweets and more. The plugin does rely on having MovableType installed, but is self hosted, meaning that you control the list, including privacy settings and data ownership.
The plugin can also be used to aggregate activity from a group as well as an individual, providing a portal or front page to groups of all sizes.
This is a good move from SixApart at a time where open standards and open access are quickly building momentum from being niche desires to mainstream wants. SixApart open sourced MovableType in December and it still has a long way to go to recapture its once dominant position as the blogging platform provider of choice, but plugins like this will certainly help them along the way.
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Connectivity is fast becoming a competitive necessity in the airline industry. Another airline is adding WiFi service to its flights. This time, Continental. But it is the crippled, low-speed kind that can only handle e-mail and instant messaging. CrunchGear weighs in: This day Continental announced that they’ll be offering Wi-Fi, but it […]
 Connectivity is fast becoming a competitive necessity in the airline industry. Another airline is adding WiFi service to its flights. This time, Continental. But it is the crippled, low-speed kind that can only handle e-mail and instant messaging. CrunchGear weighs in:
This day Continental announced that they’ll be offering Wi-Fi, but it will be the same crippled mess that you can find on JetBlue. It’s not all bad, though. The agreement with LiveTV will also bring 36 channels of live TV thanks to DirecTV. First-class passengers will receive the service (TV) for free while economy-class passengers will have to muster up $6. The Wi-Fi service I just mentioned will be free. It’s free because it sucks. I’ll wait for AirCell’s service on American or Virgin America.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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Live video streaming service BlogTV has signed a deal with the AOL owned ICQ that will see BlogTV promoted to ICQ users. The initial stage of the deal will see BlogTV promoted to ICQ users through the ICQ website, and in return ICQ will become the preferred instant messaging platform on BlogTV. The second stage will […]
 Live video streaming service BlogTV has signed a deal with the AOL owned ICQ that will see BlogTV promoted to ICQ users.
The initial stage of the deal will see BlogTV promoted to ICQ users through the ICQ website, and in return ICQ will become the preferred instant messaging platform on BlogTV. The second stage will see ICQ users being able to use their ICQ login details to access and use BlogTV, with any revenue generated from ICQ users using BlogTV to be split between the two companies.
The first market the deal will be rolled out to is Russia, which has 8 million active ICQ users. BlogTV will operate a Russian language site customized for local market conditions.
Last week, BlogTV celebrated its 100,000th user and has so far shown 50 million viewing minutes since it launched.
The arms race to become the dominant leader in the live streaming market continues. Ustream.tv beat competitors to become the exclusive internet streaming provider for the Republican National Convention yesterday, and others including Mogulus (the official streaming partner of the Crunchies) and Justin.tv have continued to explore every opportunity for maximum exposure. Blog.TV’s move into country specific sites in conjunction with ICQ is a positive step for the service, and I’d anticipate to see similar deals and country specific sites from the other major players as the year progresses.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 Via [TechCrunch]
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By Evan Ackerman Anything squishy gets major points with me. Especially if it’s useful at the same time. The Lite-On Moldable Mouse has guts made out of soft modeling clay encased in a nylon polyurethane fabric cover. With a little bit of effort, you can rework the mouse into whatever shape feels most comfortable. Although the […]
By Evan Ackerman
Anything squishy gets major points with me. Especially if it’s useful at the same time. The Lite-On Moldable Mouse has guts made out of soft modeling clay encased in a nylon polyurethane fabric cover. With a little bit of effort, you can rework the mouse into whatever shape feels most comfortable. Although the optical sensor is static in the bottom (along with the batteries), the click buttons and touch sensitive scroll well are stuck onto the cover and communicate with the rest of the mouse via RFID, so you can un-stick them and get creative. It’s a concept, but how hard could it possibly be to stuff a mouse with clay? Probably harder than it seems like it should be.
[ Red Dot Design Awards ] VIA [ DVICE ]
Peripherals
 Via [Ohgizmo]
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By Andrew Liszewski Leonardo Bonnani, who runs hyperexperience.com, recently visited the Panasonic Center in Tokyo and discovered these solar and wind powered streetlights around the building. During the day the solar cells on top and the turbines generate power that’s stored in a battery at the base. At night the battery is used to run the […]
By Andrew Liszewski
Leonardo Bonnani, who runs hyperexperience.com, recently visited the Panasonic Center in Tokyo and discovered these solar and wind powered streetlights around the building. During the day the solar cells on top and the turbines generate power that’s stored in a battery at the base. At night the battery is used to run the streetlights, though the turbines continue to spin and produce power even in the dark.
There’s also a short video of the streetlights in action on Leonardo’s site, since at first I actually thought the photo was a 3D concept rendering, but they’re definitely real. Also, the Panasonic Center is less of a corporate HQ, and more of a place for the public to come and experience current and future technologies being developed by the company. So I’m not sure if these unique streetlights are actually used by Panasonic at their other buildings.
[ Spinning Streetlights ] VIA [ Interactive Architecture dot org ]
Eco friendly, Innovation
 Via [Ohgizmo]
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By Luke Anderson Remember last year when we told you that those crazy Japanese pet feeders that you could control from anywhere? It seemed like just another one of those gadgets that only the Japanese would probably use, and thus would never be available over here. Well, I was wrong, someone has developed a similar feeder […]
By Luke Anderson
Remember last year when we told you that those crazy Japanese pet feeders that you could control from anywhere? It seemed like just another one of those gadgets that only the Japanese would probably use, and thus would never be available over here. Well, I was wrong, someone has developed a similar feeder just for us here in the US.
Like the iSeePet360 you’ll have a decent-sized container for dry food, and a webcam for viewing your pet. You can choose to feed your pet on a timer, or do it manually. You can tune into the webcam to watch your pet eat (if that’s your thing) or simply have it automatically email pictures of your pet at each feeding. The best part? It only costs $298, which is nearly $150 cheaper than the Japanese product.
[ SmartHome ] VIA [ Red Ferret ]
Household, Mobile and Unwired, Remotes
 Via [Ohgizmo]
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By Luke Anderson I would be willing to venture that more than a few people reading this have downloaded music illegally. I’ll admit that I used to do my fair share back in the day, but being a little older and wiser, have been legally purchasing my music from iTunes for some time. Recently I heard […]
By Luke Anderson
I would be willing to venture that more than a few people reading this have downloaded music illegally. I’ll admit that I used to do my fair share back in the day, but being a little older and wiser, have been legally purchasing my music from iTunes for some time. Recently I heard about Qtrax, which is a legal site that will let you download as much music as you want, for free. The only catch is that it is DRM protected, and you have to watch some ads. Seems like a small price to pay for unlimited music downloads, right?
I’m sure that it would work out just fine, if they actually have any music to download. Unfortunately, the service went live yesterday, sans downloads. They had been talking big about the deals they had with the big four labels for over 25 million tracks, the only problem was that they didn’t have anything signed with even a single one of them.
You know what they say, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
[ Qtrax ] VIA [ p2pnet ]
MP3, multimedia, Music
 Via [Ohgizmo]
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Ever since Google options finished vesting, people have been wondering what will become of the Xooglers after they take their money and jump into something new. Google’s former Product Management Director for AdSense, Gokul Rajaram has decided to take a position on the board of Tumri, a display advertising startup that delivers dynamically targeted ads. […]
 Ever since Google options completed vesting, people have been wondering what will become of the Xooglers after they take their money and jump into something new. Google’s former Product Management Director for AdSense, Gokul Rajaram has decided to take a position on the board of Tumri, a display advertising startup that delivers dynamically targeted ads.
Rajaram served at Google from January 2003 to November 2007 and played a major role in developing AdSense in early 2003 and on. According to his bio:
He also helped drive a number of Google’s acquisitions, including DoubleClick, AdScape, and dMarc. Earlier in his career, Rajaram worked as a technical architect at Juno On the web, where he developed the back-end advertising system that drove much of Juno’s revenues and helped it go public in 1999. Rajaram has an M.B.A. from MIT Sloan, a M.S. in Computer Science from UT Austin, and a BTech in Personal Science from IIT Kanpur where he received the President’s Gold Medal for being Class Valedictorian.
No doubt Tumri is excited to have him on board. Their current products include Adpod and Publisher, which let website owners pair relevant offers with their content. Rajaram’s experience at Google couldn’t be more relevant.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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