By Evan Ackerman When I need more storage nowadays, I’m too cheap and/or lazy to bother with external drive enclosures. I just find a sexy, naked HD, plug her in, and go to town. Brando streamlines the connection process with this SATA drive dock, which is able to read any 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA HD you […]
By Evan Ackerman
When I need more storage nowadays, I’m too cheap and/or lazy to bother with external drive enclosures. I just find a sexy, naked HD, plug her in, and go to town. Brando streamlines the connection process with this SATA drive dock, which is able to read any 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA HD you shove into its maw. It also reads all of the trendiest varieties of memory cards, and includes two USB ports to boot. Connect it to your computer with either a USB cable or an eSata cable, and you’ll have the only storage media reader you’ll ever need. Except for CDs and DVDs, that’s. And IDE drives. And floppy disks. And holodisks. You’re getting close, Brando, but you’re not all the way there yet.
The SATA HDD Multi-Function Dock will run you just under $80, including shipping.
By Andrew Liszewski I know in the past I may have complained about Lucasfilm’s over-licensing of the Star Wars franchise, but occasionally you encounter an item that’s actually pretty cool. The AT-AT first seen in The Empire Strikes Back is pretty iconic, and while I’ve finally come to accept the fact that I’ll probably never […]
By Andrew Liszewski
I know in the past I might have complained about Lucasfilm’s over-licensing of the Star Wars franchise, but occasionally you come across an item that’s actually pretty cool. The AT-AT first seen in The Empire Strikes Back is pretty iconic, and while I’ve finally come to accept the fact that I’ll probably never own one in my lifetime, at least I have the ability to have them decorating a set of skateboard wheels. These Imperial Rollers from Kontrol feature a pattern of tiny AT-AT silhouettes, but I’m not really sure if they’re officially licensed or not. (I’m leaning towards not.) Your friends will have to get in really, really close to actually recognize the pattern of AT-ATs, but at just $27.99 from ActionVillage.com for a set of 4, it’s a cheap and subtle way to show your Star Wars pride.
By Andrew Liszewski Designed by Chris Kabel, the Sticky Lamp comes in what appears to be the standard plastic bubble packaging you’d normally throw away once it was opened. However, the plastic packaging is actually meant to be a part of the lamp itself. On the back you’ll find a self-adhesive fixing that allows you to […]
By Andrew Liszewski
Designed by Chris Kabel, the Sticky Lamp comes in what appears to be the standard plastic bubble packaging you’d normally throw away once it was opened. However, the plastic packaging is actually meant to be a part of the lamp itself. On the back you’ll find a self-adhesive fixing that allows you to stick the lamp wherever you need an extra bit of light. Not surprisingly you’re not supposed to use a bulb that’s greater than 15W, and I assume an energy efficient fluorescent or LED model that gives off minimal heat would be the ideal choice.
It’s nice to see blogs growing up, even if they are about babies. People.com has bought Celebrity Baby Blog, a fast-growing blog started four years ago by Danielle Friedland. She confirmed the deal earlier this week, after MediaWeek broke the story. The site has an editorial staff of 17 editors, contributors, writers, […]
It’s nice to see blogs growing up, even if they are about babies. People.com has bought Celebrity Baby Blog, a fast-growing blog started four years ago by Danielle Friedland. She confirmed the deal earlier this week, after MediaWeek broke the story. The site has an editorial staff of 17 editors, contributors, writers, and reviewers (presumably, not all full time).
The blog is an obvious fit for People, which knows that stories about pregnant celebrities and their babies sell. (Doesn’t it seem like pregnant celebrities are on the cover of People more than anything else?). The price was not disclosed, but Friedland and staff will stay on to grow the site.
But People.com’s gain is Federated Media Publishing’s loss. With this acquisition, FM Publishing is losing yet another anchor blog from its advertising network. Last year, it lost Digg to Microsoft, and earlier this month it lost Ars Technica to Condé Nast. Now, Time Inc. (my former employer) has snapped up Celebrity Baby Blog.
Celebrity Baby is FM Publishing’s top parenting blog, and has recently started to pull in more pageviews (and thus advertising impressions) than FM stalwart BoingBoing. Since February its traffic has shot up—to 6.9 million pageviews and 720,000 very special visitors in April, according to comScore. That month, BoingBoing had more unique visitors (2 million), but fewer pageviews (3.7 million). See the chart below.
Deals like this point to the fundamental weakness of FM’s business model. When a blog in FM Publishing’s network gets big enough or gets purchased, FM loses all or part of their advertising inventory. The more profitable a blog is for FM, the more likely it is to try to sell ads on its own or be taken away by a bigger media company with its own ad sales force. (Disclosure: TechCrunch is also an FM partner site. They sell a portion of our ads, but we also sell our own).
That stated, we hear that FM was actually very helpful in getting this deal done. It knows that its blogs can walk away at any moment (As publisher Chas Edwards told me when FM raised $50 million last month), and the only way to keep them is to deliver higher CPMs than they could otherwise get. FM also wants to be seen as the ideal partner for up-and-coming blogs. Generating goodwill is always a smart business practice, even if it means having to let go of a rising star.
Update: FM’s Chas Edwards got back to me. He confirms that FM helped Friedland assess the offer from Time Inc., even though it did so as a favor. And although “it isn’t clear” what will happen to FM’s advertising relationship with Celebrity Baby Blog, he suspects that Time Inc. will take over once the current ad campaigns run out. But he says that the revenue impact of losing both Celebrity Baby Blog and the larger Ars Technica will be minimal:
We would love everybody to stay with us for life, but we realize that is not practical. In terms of a business impact, it is very minimal. No one site represents a substantial percentage of revenues.
And here are his thoughts on the importance of being a good partner, even at the end of a relationship:
I think it builds the rest of our partners’ comfort with us and the broader industry gets a better understanding that Federated Media is building nearly a talent bureau. We want our partners to go deep with us in a collaborative approach to building their business.
A lot of people still confuse Federated Media with an ad network. It is not just that we want to sell your ads, but we want to help you build your business and your brand. And maybe we’ll get the chance to participate in these exits in the future.
That’s certainly the right the attitude if he wants to keep or attract more traffic on his ad network (sorry) than will escape whenever a bigger blog graduates from FM.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Fake Shel interviews Zivity Cofounder Cyan Banister and, as usual, there’s a surprise at the end (although regular TechCrunch readers may not be so surprised). I’ve managed to halt laughing long enough to get this post up. Note: Not fully safe for work. And in fact a lot of you may be flat out offended. CrunchBase […]
Fake Shel interviews Zivity Cofounder Cyan Banister and, as usual, there’s a surprise at the end (although regular TechCrunch readers might not be so surprised). I’ve managed to cease laughing long enough to get this post up.
Note: Not fully safe for work. And in fact a lot of you might be flat out offended.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
By Luke Anderson I swear that some people spend more time typing on cell phones than they do on their computers. That would certainly explain why I-O Data has created this little Bluetooth 2.0 keyboard designed specifically for mobile phones. I honestly can’t see how something this small would be very benificial to someone. It will cost […]
By Luke Anderson
I swear that some people spend more time typing on cell phones than they do on their personal. That would certainly explain why I-O Data has created this little Bluetooth 2.0 keyboard designed specifically for mobile phones.
I honestly can’t see how something this small would be very benificial to someone. It will cost a whopping $153 when it hits stores (in Japan) next month, so why not put that money towards a phone with a full QWERTY keyboard. With such small keys, you’d probably be superior off.
The web has a few kinds of links, but the most common are text and image links. For example, I can link this image of VueStar’s logo: To a website featuring stuff on a cat (luckily I’m in a good mood or you guys would have been in for a surprise). It’s one of the backbones […]
The internet has a few kinds of links, but the most common are text and image links. For example, I have the ability to link this image of VueStar’s logo:
To a website featuring stuff on a cat (luckily I’m in a good mood or you guys would have been in for a surprise). It’s one of the backbones of our freedom. Sadly, a Singapore firm,VueStar, patented a system for “Method of locating web-pages by utilising visual images”, which is kind of like creating a patent to identify a goat on sight. Obviously this “patent” has implications in Web 2.0 because soon those curved buttons and image reflections might cost you a visit from Vuestar’s lawyers.
By Andrew Liszewski After a multi-month renovation my local Sony Store was just reborn as the ‘Sony Style’ store. At the grand re-opening there was the usual hoopla with Sony reps giving demos of various products which gave me my first opportunity to spend some real one-on-one time with the Rolly. I can’t state I was […]
By Andrew Liszewski
After a multi-month renovation my local Sony Store was just reborn as the ‘Sony Style’ store. At the grand re-opening there was the usual hoopla with Sony reps giving demos of various products which gave me my first chance to spend some real one-on-one time with the Rolly. I can’t state I was disappointed, because quite frankly I wasn’t expecting much, but I’m having trouble seeing why someone would pay $400 for one. When you see it rolling it around with the flaps moving about you might think the Rolly was being positioned as a sort of interactive musical companion, but it’s just not. While the Rolly’s dance moves can be synced to whatever music it’s playing (or streaming) or even custom programmed on a Computer, that’s about as interactive as it gets. A few store patrons seemed to think it was a robot along the lines of Aibo based on how it was moving about, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
So I guess we should just think of the Rolly as a ‘funky’ set of speakers right? Well unfortunately that was the one area where I can say I was disappointed. The Rolly is about the size of a soda can, so when you consider that has to fit a 5 hour battery, the motors to drive the ‘wheels’ and other electronic components, there’s not much room left for the speakers. As a result I was definitely unimpressed with the Rolly’s sound quality, and I don’t think I’d want to spend 5 hours listening to my music through Rolly’s speakers. As a celebration gimmick it might be cool for a few minutes, but I think there are far better ways to blow $400.
BrandDoozie has launched a Flash-based tool for SMBs that want to create marketing materials without hiring a designer. The tool’s 3-step process leads to branded sales sheets, postcards, business cards, and letterheads that can be downloaded in PDF format, and soon, ordered from professional printers as well. You start by picking a general design from a gallery […]
BrandDoozie has launched a Flash-based tool for SMBs that want to create marketing materials without hiring a designer.
The tool’s 3-step process leads to branded sales sheets, postcards, business cards, and letterheads that can be downloaded in PDF format, and soon, ordered from professional printers as well.
You start by picking a general design from a gallery that’s divided into style categories like Professional Services, Healthcare, and Travel. Basic header fonts and colors can be tweaked, after which you move on to creating a two-lined logo with its own customized fonts, letter spacing, and sizes.
The final step takes your customizations and generates the aforementioned business materials with them. Default photos can swapped in and out (from either the site’s stock collection or up to 25mb of uploads), and the copy can be changed to suit your needs (add your phone number and other details to the business card, for example).
I used BrandDoozie to create a postcard for TechCrunch. See the three screenshots below for an illustration of the process.
All in all, this is a straightforward and useful publishing tool for small organizations that don’t demand much in terms of uniqueness and creativity. Anyone who’s remotely serious about creating a real brand, however, will need to look beyond BrandDoozie’s cookie-cutter approach.
Also see HP’s LogoMaker, which is a specialized DIY tool for creating logos.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Women’s ad network Glam Media thinks it’s worth more than $1.3 billion, reports Matt Marshall at VentureBeat. That’s how much an unnamed suitor is supposedly offering for Glam. But Marshall thinks that Glam will turn it down. The company has raised $115 million, most recently in an $85 million round. Glam runs […]
Women’s ad network Glam Media thinks it’s worth more than $1.3 billion, reports Matt Marshall at VentureBeat. That’s how much an unnamed suitor is supposedly offering for Glam. But Marshall thinks that Glam will turn it down.
The company has raised $115 million, most recently in an $85 million round. Glam runs ads on female-oriented Websites that it states reaches 64 million people a month. This day it just launched a video ad service called the Glam Television Platform that bundles rights-cleared video (from partners like E! On the internet, CelebTV, Sony BMG, Brightcove, YouTube, and others) with video ads that publishers can put on their sites.
Last March, Glam started tightening up its finances by ending its policy of giving guaranteed revenues to blogs and other publishers in its network. As we reported back then:
Last year the company lost $3.7 million on $21 million in revenue. They’ve promised investors that 2008 would bring in $150 million in revenue with $40 million in profit. The only way to get there is bring in a lot more publishers, sell a lot more ads, and keep a bigger share for themselves.
If Glam is on target, a $1.3 Billion acquisition would be 8.7 times revenues and 32.5 times estimated profits. Is it really that beautiful? If there are any advertisers out there who can tell us their experience with ads on Glam, and the ROI theta re seeing there versus other ad networks, please share in comments.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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