Foursquare, the geo-location based check-in game, just announced its first venue that is combining badges and promotions. On Foursquare you get badges for checking into places. The person who checks into a place the most becomes the “Mayor.” You also get promotions from restaurants and bars nearby based on your location. Now those two elements are being tied together. For instance, Blynk Organic a restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina is the first venue to offer this promotion:
Mayor eats for free! Just show us your phone after checking in to validate. 25% off egg sandwiches for all Gym Rats (Foursquare badge required)
Foursquare, the geo-location based check-in game, just announced its first venue that is combining badges and promotions. On Foursquare you get badges for checking into places. The person who checks into a place the most becomes the “Mayor.” You also get promotions from restaurants and bars nearby based on your location. Now those two elements are being tied together. For instance, Blynk Organic a restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina is the first venue to offer this promotion:
Mayor eats for free! Just show us your phone after checking in to validate. 25% off egg sandwiches for all Gym Rats (Foursquare badge required)
A promotion like this is clever since it is also tied to something other than checkins and mayorships. The idea is that it will not only give other customers an incentive to compete and become the mayor, but also motivate customers to complete interesting tasks before redemption.
In the past, Foursquare has done check-in and mayorship promotions, but in a more ad-hoc manor. Now the promos are presented as actual ads in the app. I spoke with Foursquare’s Director of Business Development Tristan Walker, who also spoke at our RealTime CrunchUp in November, and he mentioned that there are close to 400 businesses to this date that are running regular geo-triggered promos with Foursquare.
It is not clear how Foursquare will get paid for these badge promotions. Walker says, “Right now we’re just focused on getting as many venues running promos on the platform as possible before we think about monetizing. We’d like to understand a bit more about how venue owners would like to leverage our platform in interesting ways first.”
Foursquare has been one of the main startups in the geo-location market along with recently fundedGowalla.
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By Andrew Liszewski It’s a little late to be talking about Christmas gift ideas for this year, but it’s never too early to start talking about gift ideas for next. So if you’ll need a present for someone who was a big fan of the NES, and still has a running console hooked up at home, [...]
By Andrew Liszewski
It’s a little late to be talking about Christmas gift ideas for this year, but it’s never too early to start talking about gift ideas for next. So if you’ll need a present for someone who was a big fan of the NES, and still has a running console hooked up at home, this 8 BIT XMAS 2009 cart from RetroZone is beyond perfect. For starters, the cartridge itself looks like a Christmas decoration thanks to a translucent plastic housing and blinking lights on the inside that glow while the NES is powered up. (It looks better on a top loading NES of course.)
But it doesn’t stop there. The cart also includes the RetroZone Snowball Fight!!! game that allows up to 4 players to compete in a deadly game of compacted snow projectiles, recreated in stunningly realistic 8-bit graphics. The cartridge itself sells for $43, but you can make the gift extra special with a custom splash screen message for the giftee for an extra $5, which is totally worth it in our opinion.
What do Thomas Siebel, Condoloeeza Rice and $26 million have in common? They are all connected to stealth energy startup C3, which may be entering the business of managing carbon cap-and-trade systems for corporations. In the past two weeks, C3 has filed three Form Ds with the SEC disclosing financings totaling almost $26M. Very little is known about the company publicly, and the company declines to comment on its future plans (or anything else). But from other publicly-available sources, an interesting story can be pieced together. C3 is the brainchild of Thomas Siebel, former CEO of Siebel Systems which was bought by Siebel’s previous employer Oracle for $5.7 billion in 2005. Seibel has brought in a lot of familiar talent, including former Siebel Systems and Oracle executives Patricia House and Edward Abbo. House is a star, serving on a number of boards and in the past being named one of Fortune’s 50 most powerful women. Abbo is the former CTO of Seibel Systems, among other positions. The holdover team from Siebel, including its CTO, points towards enterprise software. Also among the C3 board of directors are former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Senator and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham. Both are powerful Republicans, which comes as no surprise as Siebel played a role in introducing Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin to California.
What do Thomas Siebel, Condoleezza Rice and $26 million have in common? They are all connected to stealth energy startup C3, which may be entering the business of managing carbon cap-and-trade systems for corporations. In the past two weeks, C3 has filed three Form Ds with the SEC disclosing financings totaling almost $26M. Very little is known about the company publicly, and the company declines to comment on its future plans (or anything else). But from other publicly-available sources, an interesting story can be pieced together.
C3 is the brainchild of Thomas Siebel, former CEO of Siebel Systems which was bought by Siebel’s previous employer Oracle for $5.7 billion in 2005. Siebel has brought in a lot of familiar talent, including former Siebel Systems and Oracle executives Patricia House and Edward Abbo. House is a star, serving on a number of boards and in the past being named one of Fortune’s 50 most powerful women. Abbo is the former CTO of Siebel Systems, among other positions. The holdover team from Siebel, including its CTO, points towards enterprise software.
Also among the C3 board of directors are former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Senator and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham. Both are powerful Republicans, which comes as no surprise as Siebel played a role in introducing Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin to California. Far more interesting is the role each might play. C3 is focused on energy management and a former Secretary of Energy is a logical (and valuable) asset in that business. More interesting is the potential role of Rice. Rice’s most visible experience is as America’s lead representative to the world, suggesting that C3 is planning an international play.
Another key Director is Jay Dweck, a Managing Director and Global Head of Strategies and Technology for the Institutional Securities Group at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Dweck’s insider knowledge of institutional securities and the underlying technology at least raises the possibility that C3 will seek to securitize and/or create a market for some kind of carbon security.
So what does an enterprise-software, energy-management company with international ambitions, $26 million in capital, and sophisticated financial securities software do? Besides make a lot of money of course.
One logical answer is that the company is planning to create software/platforms for the management of carbon emissions. What makes the space potentially so valuable is cap and trade. These systems substitute a market for regulation; an enterprise’s carbon emissions are measured against a specific amount, the cap. Companies with emissions below the cap can sell their extra “space,” while companies whose emissions exceed their cap need to purchase permits for their overage. Cap and trade is not currently in use in the United States, although it has been proposed and is being pushed by the Obama Administration, but it is being used to reduce carbon emissions on a cost-efficient basis elsewhere, notably in the EU.
Two large and related problems plague cap and trade systems. One is measuring emissions (in an officially sanctioned manner) and the other is pricing them, and those two problems could very well be C3’s targets. The goal in this scenario would be to get licensed or approved to create and run cap-and-trade markets. If cap and trade is ultimately adopted as the way to control carbon emissions in the name of reducing global warming, it will be a multi-billion dollar market.
C3 bills itself as an “Energy and Emissions Management” company. Limited information about it is currently available at c3welcome.com, itself an unlikely website. The company also appears to own c3-carbon.com, and may be shopping for a more euphonious domain as it has chosen to remain at the welcome site as opposed to the longer term c3-carbon.com, which redirects.
There are other companies tackling this problem such as Greenstone Carbon Management, Carbon Hub, and Carbon Trust, but the glowing board/leadership pedigree on top of nearly limitless access to capital make C3 a diamond in the rough, so to speak.
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By Andrew Liszewski Step-up your snowball fight game with the double-duty Snofling. Not only is making snowballs with it as easy as sticking the business end into a mound of fresh powder, but it also doubles as a convenient launcher which keeps your gloves or mitts from getting soaking wet in the heat of battle. While [...]
By Andrew Liszewski
Step-up your snowball fight game with the double-duty Snofling. Not only is making snowballs with it as easy as sticking the business end into a mound of fresh powder, but it also doubles as a convenient launcher which keeps your gloves or mitts from getting soaking wet in the heat of battle. While I don’t imagine that aiming accuracy is one of its strengths, it makes up for it with a quantity over quality approach which can sometimes be just as effective. $5.95 from Amazon.
Times Square was evacuated earlier today when the bomb squad was called in to inspect a suspicious parked van. It turned out to be nothing, but as people were scrambling for information they would have been better off doing a search on Bing than on Google. A search for “Times Square” on Google about 15 minutes after I saw my first Tweet about it turned up two-day old news results up top about New Year’s Eve preperations and generic photos of Times Square, whereas a search on Bing at least had relevant headlines from ABC News (“NYPD: No Bomb Inside Van Abandoned in Times Square”) and CNN (“Police investigate van parked in Times Square”). Of course, Google was perfectly capable of showing the best realtime results. The problem is that the best results were hidden on Google’s realtime updates page (click “Show options” and then “Updates” on any search), and Bing’s Twitter search page, which combines Tweets with headlines. I learned about the bomb scare and subsequent reopening of Times Square on Twitter before it even hit most news sites. But the next thing I did was search on Google. If you look now, Google is finally showing the right news results, but the screenshot above is what I saw when I searched, along with what I saw immediately after on Bing.
Times Square was evacuated earlier today when the bomb squad was called in to inspect a suspicious parked van. It turned out to be nothing, but as people were scrambling for information they would have been better off doing a search on Bing than on Google. A search for “Times Square” on Google about 15 minutes after I saw my first Tweet about it turned up two-day old news results up top about New Year’s Eve preperations and generic photos of Times Square, whereas a search on Bing at least had relevant headlines from ABC News (“NYPD: No Bomb Inside Van Abandoned in Times Square”) and CNN (“Police investigate van parked in Times Square”).
Of course, Google was perfectly capable of showing the best realtime results. The problem is that the best results were hidden on Google’s realtime updates page (click “Show options” and then “Updates” on any search), and Bing’s Twitter search page, which combines Tweets with headlines. I learned about the bomb scare and subsequent reopening of Times Square on Twitter before it even hit most news sites. But the next thing I did was search on Google. If you look now, Google is finally showing the right news results, but the screenshot above is what I saw when I searched, along with what I saw immediately after on Bing.
Google’s realtime results which show what people are saying on Twitter provides much more relevant information than its stale news search results on the main search page. Incidents such as this one show why those realtime results should be on the homepage as well, for both Google and Bing. If this was a real incident, hiding the realtime search results doesn’t do anyone much good.
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The numbers are in. And they look good. It appears that online holiday spending rose slightly this year, by 5 percent, to $27 billion for the shopping season from November 1 through Christmas Eve, according to comScore. For the time period from Black Friday through Christmas Eve, sales showed a slight uptick, rising 3.5 percent. With respect to individual product categories, consumer electronics saw yearly sales growth of slightly over 20 percent, while sales of jewelry and watches also rose. From reports over the past few months, the numbers indicated that the total online spending would be higher this year than last, when the U.S. spending was blindsided with a crippling recession. The final shopping weekend before Christmas saw a 13 percent growth rate in online spending from the previous year, thanks to the wintry mess that hit the Eastern Seaboard. And the full week posted a 6 percent yearly increase in spending, setting a one-week sales record with more than $4.8 billion in spending. Online sales numbers from Black Friday and Cyber Monday also appeared to be stronger than last year.
The numbers are in. And they look good. It appears that online holiday spending rose slightly this year, by 5 percent, to $27 billion for the shopping season from November 1 through Christmas Eve, according to comScore. For the time period from Black Friday through Christmas Eve, sales showed a slight uptick, rising 3.5 percent. With respect to individual product categories, consumer electronics saw yearly sales growth of slightly over 20 percent, while sales of jewelry and watches also rose.
From reports over the past few months, the numbers indicated that the total online spending would be higher this year than last, when the U.S. spending was blindsided with a crippling recession. The final shopping weekend before Christmas saw a 13 percent growth rate in online spending from the previous year, thanks to the wintry mess that hit the Eastern Seaboard. And the full week posted a 6 percent yearly increase in spending, setting a one-week sales record with more than $4.8 billion in spending. Online sales numbers from Black Friday and Cyber Monday also appeared to be stronger than last year.
ComScore also reported that larger e-retailers like Best Buy and Walmart outperformed the smaller online shops. The web analytics company says that sales from larger retailers were buoyed by promotions, and offers of free shipping later in the holiday season. Social media was also used as a strategy for retailers. 28 percent of shoppers surveyed by comScore reported that social media promotions from retailers influenced their purchases.
Of course, it’s important to note that these sales numbers are being compared to those from last year, when spending was at a low thanks to the bleak conditions of the economy. While it’s a good sign that online spending is growing, retailers still need to dig themselves out of the hole from last year’s season. But there’s still a little less than a week left of the holiday season, and sales could rise even more.
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You remember OnLive, right? The service, which lets you play any game remotely on a distant server, has produced much skepticism and much interest, and is now in public beta. We got a good look at it back in March when we were at GDC, and it appears that things are much the same. However, the combination of crowd noise and my bad playing made for a less-than-optimal viewing experience. This video is much clearer and much longer (it’s essentially a guest lecture at Columbia), so if you’re still interested in the OnLive thing, it may be for you. This video deals with some of the technical issues that have been brought up. I haven’t watched the whole thing (skipped around to get the interesting bits) but he does address some of the compression and packet loss issues they have to deal with. You remember OnLive, right? The service, which lets you play any game remotely on a distant server, has produced much skepticism and much interest, and is now in public beta. We got a good look at it back in March when we were at GDC, and it appears that things are much the same. However, the combination of crowd noise and my bad playing made for a less-than-optimal viewing experience. This video is much clearer and much longer (it’s essentially a guest lecture at Columbia), so if you’re still interested in the OnLive thing, it may be for you. This video deals with some of the technical issues that have been brought up. I haven’t watched the whole thing (skipped around to get the interesting bits) but he does address some of the compression and packet loss issues they have to deal with.
By Andrew Liszewski Jealous of all those new-fangled cellphones that come with built-in projectors these days? Well the HypnosEye will level the playing field. It seems to work like an overhead projector, using a mirror and lens to magnify and project the display from your cellphone onto a wall, ceiling or other surface. There’s no light [...]
By Andrew Liszewski
Jealous of all those new-fangled cellphones that come with built-in projectors these days? Well the HypnosEye will level the playing field. It seems to work like an overhead projector, using a mirror and lens to magnify and project the display from your cellphone onto a wall, ceiling or other surface. There’s no light source of its own, so you’ll need to set the brightness on your phone’s display as high as it can go for best results, which also means it will probably work better with devices with large LCDs like the iPhone, iPod Touch, Zune etc. Unfortunately though the $117 price tag from the Japan Trend Shop pushes this well out of the novelty purchase price range, particularly when the results as seen in the video I’ve included after the jump aren’t great.
By Chris Scott Barr Winter is here, so golf might not be the first thing on your mind. If you’re like me, then you probably don’t think about the sport too much anyway. I’ve played a few rounds and haven’t the patience to actually get good at it. Then again, if you have a Golf Ball [...]
By Chris Scott Barr
Winter is here, so golf might not be the first thing on your mind. If you’re like me, then you probably don’t think about the sport too much anyway. I’ve played a few rounds and haven’t the patience to actually get good at it. Then again, if you have a Golf Ball Launcher you don’t really need to do too much practicing.
The Golf Ball Launcher is exactly what you’d expect it to be. It’s a device that launches your ball (up to around 300 yards) so you don’t have to mess with those silly clubs (though you may still need a putter for the green). The launcher is powered by an air compressor, which will give you another reason to take a cart instead of hoofing it across the entire course. If you want to feel like you’re actually putting some effort into things, you can opt to use a hand pump instead.
Unfortunately the makers are still working to iron out the final design and working with golf courses to allow these to be used on the premises. Expect to pay about $800 for one when they do hit the market.
A (four day old now) spoof of all the “making of Avatar” videos is out there. It makes fun of James Cameron’s 15 year journey to create Avatar. And yes, telesync versions of Avatar are available on BitTorrent now. And watching it that way is nothing at all like watching the movie in a theater in 3D. The video is below:
A (four day old now) spoof of all the “making of Avatar” videos is out there. It makes fun of James Cameron’s 15 year journey to create Avatar. And yes, telesync versions of Avatar are available on BitTorrent now. And watching it that way is nothing at all like watching the movie in a theater in 3D.
Foursquare, the geo-location based check-in game, just announced its first venue that is combining badges and promotions. On Foursquare you get badges for checking into places. The person who checks into a place the most becomes the “Mayor.” You also get promotions from restaurants and bars nearby based on your location. Now those two elements are being tied together. For instance, Blynk Organic a restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina is the first venue to offer this promotion:
What do Thomas Siebel, Condoloeeza Rice and $26 million have in common? They are all connected to stealth energy startup 
Times Square was evacuated earlier today when the bomb squad was called in to inspect a suspicious parked van. It turned out to be nothing, but as people were scrambling for information they would have been better off doing a search on Bing than on Google. A search for 
The numbers are in. And they look good. It appears that online holiday spending rose slightly this year, by 5 percent, to $27 billion for the shopping season from November 1 through Christmas Eve, according to 
You remember 
A (four day old now) spoof of all the “making of Avatar” 
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