Just a week after ReFrame It launched its service that lets people annotate Web pages, another startup that’s been doing pretty much the same thing since 2006, Fleck, is putting itself up for sale. Fleck is a Dutch company founded by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive, the famous white-suited entrepreneurs who woke up Mike once at his house to pitch their startup. The duo also run the Next Web conference (disclosure: I was the moderator last year) and blog, which they’ll now be focusing on. I asked Boris, why Fleck never really took off and why he wants to unload it. His answer:
Version 1 was too limited and version 2 was too complicated. Latest version is great. Now all it needs is another push and some attention. We can’t give it that because we have other interests now (Blog & Conference and our shares in Twones and Wakoopa) and we’re out of funding. Time for a new owner!
Just a week after ReFrame It launched its service that lets people annotate Web pages, another startup that’s been doing pretty much the same thing since 2006, Fleck, is putting itself up for sale. Fleck is a Dutch company founded by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive, the famous white-suited entrepreneurs who woke up Mike once at his house to pitch their startup. The duo also run the Next Web conference (disclosure: I was the moderator last year) and blog, which they will now be focusing on.
I asked Boris, why Fleck never really took off and why he wants to unload it. His answer:
Version 1 was too limited and version 2 was too complicated. Latest version is great. Now all it needs is another push and some attention. We can’t give it that because we’ve other interests now (Blog & Conference and our shares in Twones and Wakoopa) and we’re out of funding. Time for a new owner!
The service started out as a way to add the equivalent of sticky notes to Web pages. So that when other Fleck members visit that page, you can see their notes. This idea has been appealing to many entrepreneurs (see, Third Voice, Stickis, Diigo, ShiftSpace, TrailFire) but has so far failed to catch on. Fleck has evolved to include bookmark sharing, tagging, and Friendcasting abilities. Now Boris and Patrick are hoping to get back the one-million-Euro valuation that investors put on the service during its last round.
Good luck with that, because if they don’t sell it, this thing is going into the deadpool.
One month after launching its new suggestion system, Digg is already reporting positive results. Digg advocates stories based on other members with similar voting patterns and interests. Chief scientist Anton Kast writes on the Digg Blog: - Digging activity is up significantly: the total number of Diggs increased 40% after launch. - The Suggestion Engine […]
One month after launching its new recommendation system, Digg is already reporting positive results. Digg suggests stories based on other members with similar voting patterns and interests. Chief scientist Anton Kast writes on the Digg Blog:
- Digging activity is up significantly: the total number of Diggs increased 40% after launch.
- The Suggestion Engine is running strong: at any given point in time, the system is generating over 54 Million Recommendations, with the average Digger having nearly 200 Suggestions from an average of 34 “Diggers like you”.
- Friend activity/friends added is up 24%.
- Commenting is up 11% since launch.
Digg’s recommendation engine takes a Last.fm approach to finding people’s whose tastes overlap with yours and then suggesting stories they’ve Dugg up but that you’ve missed. It is collaborative filtering for news.
As Digg becomes more mainstream, it needs technologies such as this to bring it back to its glory days when everybody was interested in the same niche categories. Social suggestions work ideal when they are extracted from niche communities who are obsessive about one or two topics. Digg started out as a haven for hardcore techies, but has branched out.
The recommendation system is designed to, in effect, help Diggers carve out their own niche communities again. If you happen to enjoy tech industry news, you’ll see stories from other like-minded Diggers. If you prefer politics or sports, you’ll get those stories. And if you like a combination, the system will grab recommendations from each appropriate bucket.
At least, that’s how it is supposed to work in theory. The suggestions seem decent. But I personally haven’t noticed anything that really strikes home. Over time, it should get superior.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Ignighter, the group dating site that’s part of the TechStars class of 2008, has closed a $1.2 million angel funding round. CEO Adam Sachs states that the money will be used to expand its team (particularly its development staff), and will also be used for a marketing push to increase awareness. Ignighter grants small groups of friends to collaborate on a group profile, where they have the ability to include pics and specify their interests. The site then presents a list of possible matches with other groups and helps them arrage get-togethers in the real world. The group environment helps avoid the awkward 1-on-1 situations that result from tradional dating sites like Match, and there’s less pressure - if you don’t hit it off with anyone, you can still have a good time hanging out with your buddies.
Ignighter, the group dating site that is part of the TechStars class of 2008, has closed a $1.2 million angel funding round. CEO Adam Sachs states that the money will be used to expand its team (particularly its development staff), and will also be used for a marketing push to increase awareness.
Ignighter allows small groups of friends to collaborate on a group profile, where they have the ability to include pics and specify their interests. The site then presents a list of possible matches with other groups and helps them arrage get-togethers in the real world. The group environment helps avoid the awkward 1-on-1 situations that result from tradional dating sites like Match, and there’s less pressure - if you don’t hit it off with anyone, you can still have a good time hanging out with your buddies.
The site made its debut at the TechStars demo day in August with an estimated 10,000 users, and has since grown to 15,000 registered members. TechStars is a seed-stage investment fund that’s comparable to Y Combinator and DreamIt Ventures.
The dating space is very crowded with some very well established players, but popularity has recently been shifting away from traditional sites towards alternatives, which Ignighter may be able to capitalize on. Also see Mixtt, a similar group dating site that launched at TechCrunch50.
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Nokia doesn’t want to miss the next wave of mobile technologies so it is doubling down on its venture investment activities. The cell phone giant is putting another $150 million to work in Nokia Growth Partners, a fund in which it is the only limited partner. This brings the total capital in […]
Nokia doesn’t want to miss the next wave of mobile technologies so it is doubling down on its venture investment activities. The cell phone giant is putting another $150 million to work in Nokia Growth Partners, a fund in which it is the only limited partner. This brings the total capital in the fund to $250 million (Nokia initiated the fund with $100 million in 2004). That is in addition to a $100 million fund of funds also run by Nokia Growth Partners on behalf of Nokia, which is used to sprinkle cash around to other VC firms.
So far the fund has done ideal investing in mobile chip companies, some of which have been acquired by ATI (BitBoys for $44 million), Broadcom (Global Locate for $143 million), and Dolby (Coding Technologies for $250 million). But it is also an investor in mobile video service Kyte. Generally, it is a alter-stage growth fund that looks for companies with a product ready to ramp up.
The new cash comes at a time when the mobile Web is generating excitement again in Silicon Valley. Most of that excitement right now surrounds the iPhone. Throwing around a tiny cash to encourage startups to develop cutting-edge apps for Nokia phones isn’t a bad strategy. The fund will also invest more heavily in China and India, where mobile growth far outstrips the U.S.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Are you an American Express card holder? Then your vote can help provide supplies to 100,000 school kids in the U.S. American Express is giving away $2.5 million to the top charities its members vote for, and DonorsChoose right now is in third place for the top $1.5 million prize. And it is only about 1,000 votes away from second place. There are about six hours left to vote. You can vote here for DonorsChoose, or go here to see all top 25 contenders. (Only AmEx members can vote). We are participating in this year’s DonorsChoose Blogger’s Challenge, and the top three TechCrunch donors who give at least $1,000 will receive tickets to every TechCrunch event for the next year and a chance at a pitch session with angel investor Ron Conway. (More details here). But if you’re have an AmEx account, you might do more good by simply voting. DonorsChoose is an educational charity that lets you find and fund specific teacher’s projects. If you want to fund a project directly, you can do so here through TechCrunch. For instance, for only $153 you can purchase some Flip video cameras for a class of underprivileged students in Virginia. If you made money in today’s market rally, you can afford it. And it is tax deductible.
Are you an American Express card holder? Then your vote can help provide supplies to 100,000 school children in the U.S. American Express is giving away $2.5 million to the top charities its members vote for, and DonorsChoose right now is in third place for the top $1.5 million prize. And it is only about 1,000 votes away from second place. There are about six hours left to vote. You can vote here for DonorsChoose, or go here to see all top 25 contenders. (Only AmEx members can vote).
We are participating in this year’s DonorsChoose Blogger’s Challenge, and the top three TechCrunch donors who give at least $1,000 will receive tickets to each TechCrunch event for the next year and a chance at a pitch session with angel investor Ron Conway. (More details here). But if you’re have an AmEx account, you might do more good by simply voting.
DonorsChoose is an educational charity that lets you find and fund specific teacher’s projects. If you want to fund a project directly, you can do so here through TechCrunch. For instance, for only $153 you can buy some Flip video cameras for a class of underprivileged students in Virginia. If you made money in today’s market rally, you can afford it. And it is tax deductible.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
If the future of the internet is the mobile web, then mobile site creation is going to be a massive thing. A few services have already spotted the opportunity but Jag.ag a new service coming out from Israel has a very interesting product approach that could make it stand out.
If the future of the web is the mobile web, then mobile site creation is going to be a large thing. A few services have already spotted the opportunity but Jag.ag a new service coming out from Israel has a very interesting product approach that could make it stand out.
Just to makes things clear i am not referring to technologies that are porting existing websites to mobile devices like Mofuse (for RSS publishers’ usage), Infogin (another israeli startup for existing websites adaptation to mobile) or Momac (operator service). Jag.ag and its competitors like Zinadoo or Wirenode are enabling non tech audiences to create their own mobile presence in a few steps/minutes.
Unlike its competitors, Jag.ag offers you to begin your page creation without the necessity to open an account which is a good driver to conversion. You first land on a WYSIWYG simple interface with where you can compose your page. The editor includes a gallery of content you can add which is not really of the highest quality for now but that’ll be fed over time with superior items. The interesting part is the “web grabber” which lets you capture part of the web with a very slick drag and drop interface and that integrates with Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr and Google (any mobile service like maps)
Once your mobile page is done (at this stage you still don’t have to open an account) you just need to set a mobile URL.jag.ag (in our example http://techcrunch.jag.ag) and finalize the creation of your account by simply adding your email and mobile phone. You receive then an SMS and a credit of 30 SMS to invite your friends (the URL can be sent by email). Your site is then accessible freely and hosted by Jag.ag. The rendering should be fine with most mobile devices.
Jag.ag can be used to create mobile sites, mobile greetings and mobile invitations even though i am not so sure about the relevancy of this last category since invitations tend to need more features like RSVP management. You can easily envision how this platform could be used to other purposes (professional presence, advertising,…). If you already have a mobile site you can import if into Jag.ag. A Wap editor is also available although i don’t believe this will have strong adoption for obvious reasons as lack of conveniency. Overall the service is good but the home page design, the content selection and the editor ergonomy could still be improved.
Jag.ag is only a few months in the air but shows already strong adoption from those who came across the site tells me Lior Netzer the CEO of Jag.ag. The company has not raised money from VCs. It is supported by Arik Czerniak (who co founded the company and is a board member) who co-founded and recently left MetaCafe. Some first class angels are supporting this project. The company is betting, rightly so, that many will need a mobile presence, ad hoc casual or professional and that Jag.ag will be a good solution for them. Jag.ag can also be seen as a superior substitute to SMS/MMS. The business model can be easily guessed since we are talking about a web to mobile service: premium services and SMS credits for different actions and features will be part of the recipe.
For those who were wondering where this name is coming from: just take your mobile phone and write the URL on it: single clicks and simple memorization (5-2-4-0-2-4)
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Dare Obasanjo, a Microsoft employee and the son of a former President of Nigeria, doesn’t enjoy it when people disagree with him. I found that out in 2007 when Obasanjo vandalized the TechCrunch Wikipedia page in response to a post we wrote that was mildly critical of Microsoft’s hiring of a blogger to edit certain Wikipedia entries relating to Open Office standards. His actions as an individual and as a representative of Microsoft were outrageous. Today he writes a post accusing us of “encouraging…garbage” on TechCrunch because we’ve reported on the market fall over the last week, pointing to three examples (out of over 100 posts last week) where we chronicle the fall of Yahoo and Google stock, and the Seesmic layoffs. A number of other blogs jumped on the bandwagon, calling for the negativity to stop (obviously none of these writers read TechCrunch this last week). “The last thing we need is popular blogs AND the mass media spreading despair and schadenfreude at a time like this,” he states.
Dare Obasanjo, a Microsoft employee and the son of a former President of Nigeria, doesn’t like it when people disagree with him. I found that out in 2007 when Obasanjo vandalized the TechCrunch Wikipedia page in response to a post we wrote that was mildly critical of Microsoft’s hiring of a blogger to edit certain Wikipedia entries relating to Open Office standards. His actions as an individual and as a representative of Microsoft were outrageous.
This day he writes a post accusing us of “encouraging…garbage” on TechCrunch because we’ve reported on the market fall over the last week, pointing to three examples (out of over 100 posts last week) where we chronicle the fall of Yahoo and Google stock, and the Seesmic layoffs. A number of other blogs jumped on the bandwagon, calling for the negativity to halt (obviously none of these writers read TechCrunch this last week). “The last thing we need is popular blogs AND the mass media spreading despair and schadenfreude at a time like this,” he states.
Our job isn’t to cheerlead the startup scene no matter what happens. Our job is to report the news as it happens and add our thought as we feel is appropriate. So even if we were reporting nothing but doom and gloom, the criticism isn’t appropriate.
But in fact we’ve been fairly cheerful over the last week, reporting on a couple of dozen new startups and products, focusing as much as possible on the positive, and trying to defocus the mobs from blaming the venture capitalists for what’s happening in the markets.
In other words, the tone of our coverage hasn’t changed.
So what happened? You guessed it. We dared to disagree with something the Obasanjo had to state over on TechCrunchIT, which he immediately characterized as a personal attack. A few days later- zap! - he finds three posts that aren’t all roses and butterflies and makes a subtle accusation that advocates TechCrunch may be partly to blame for the hysteria in the market right now.
In fact, his post, which ostensibly calls for everyone to be positive no matter what, is really just a clever way of inciting the mob to blame (in this case) TechCrunch for the market problems.
This isn’t ok from anyone, and it really isn’t ok from a high profile Microsoft blogger. This is the second Obasanjo has attacked us when we disagreed with him, which in our mind is synonymous with Microsoft attacking us. It’s time for Microsoft to halt this nonsense.
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The team behind Wakoopa, a social network that tracks and shares information about the desktop applications used by its members, noticed that Firefox and Safari were consistently ranked as the network’s top two applications by usage. So they took this as a cue to start measuring web apps in addition to desktop apps, since their data confirm (at least among the developer types drawn to its service) what we already know anecdotally: that web apps are slowly replacing desktop apps.
The team behind Wakoopa, a social network that tracks and shares information about the desktop applications used by its members, noticed that Firefox and Safari were consistently ranked as the network’s top two applications by usage. So they took this as a cue to begin measuring web apps in addition to desktop apps, since their data confirm (at least among the developer types drawn to its service) what we already know anecdotally: that web apps are slowly replacing desktop apps.
Starting this day, sites like Flickr will be listed as software programs alongside traditional desktop apps like Photoshop. And if you check out a user’s profile page, such as co-founder Robert Gaal’s, you’ll see sites like Scribd and Gmail ranked alongside Adium and iTunes.
Wakoopa faces a bit of a challenge when it comes to defining, and then identifying, web apps. Virtually all websites could be considered web apps, but the line has to be drawn somewhere for practical purposes (Picnik is undoubtedly a web app but your cousin’s GeoCities page clearly is not). Wakoopa has decided to leverage our very own CrunchBase API to make the distinction, since most of the sites in CrunchBase meet the relevant criteria.
How important is this new functionality to Wakoopa’s success? It may turn out to be one of the most important product decisions the company makes. Gaal himself says that he “wouldn’t be surprised if [they] end up only tracking online software in the future.”
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
It’s Elevator Pitch Friday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from Palo Alto Software, a software company startup that wants to make it easier for organizations to manage and collaborate using e-mail, to save time and be more productive. Palo Alto Software wants to make organizations more efficient, by taking community wide e-mail boxes, such as info,sales, or admin, and applying logic and analytics against them. For organizations that deal with huge quantities of e-mail, managing that e-mail can become a task onto itself. Palo Alto software’s E-mail Center Pro automates this task, freeing employees up to focus on the content of the e-mail instead of just managing it. E-mail Center Pro is sold through a Software as a Service model, with pricing based upon e-mail volume.
It’s Elevator Pitch Friday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from Palo Alto Software, a software company startup that wants to make it easier for organizations to manage and collaborate using e-mail, to save time and be more productive.
Palo Alto Software wants to make organizations more efficient, by taking community wide e-mail boxes, such as info@, sales@, or admin@, and applying logic and analytics against them. For organizations that deal with massive quantities of e-mail, managing that e-mail can become a task onto itself. Palo Alto Software’s E-mail Center Pro automates this task, freeing employees up to focus on the content of the e-mail instead of just managing it. E-mail Center Pro is sold through a Software as a Service model, with pricing based upon e-mail volume.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
It’s unlikely Google will ever find another money machine as efficient as search advertising, which accounts for about 40% of the $40 billion advertising dollars spent on the internet each year. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try. Today they unleashed two new forms of advertisements: click to buy links on YouTube and adsense for Flash games. The New York Times states Google plans to release several other ad products in the coming weeks as well, so don’t think we’re done yet. Most people still think of Google as a search business. But what the analysts understood long ago, and the rest of us are realizing now, is that what they really want to do is organize all the world’s information, and then put ads on it.
It’s unlikely Google will ever find another money machine as efficient as search advertising, which accounts for about 40% of the $40 billion advertising dollars spent online each year. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try. Today they unleashed two new forms of advertisements: click to buy links on YouTube and adsense for Flash games.
The New York Times says Google plans to release several other ad products in the coming weeks as well, so don’t think we’re done yet.
Most people still think of Google as a search business. But what the analysts understood long ago, and the rest of us are realizing now, is that what they really want to do is organize all the world’s information, and then put ads on it.
Which is fine with me, as long as the ads are like this one. But taking a break from my favorite Flash game to watch a video ad for insurance?
No thanks.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Just a week after ReFrame It launched its service that lets people annotate Web pages, another startup that’s been doing pretty much the same thing since 2006, Fleck, is putting itself up for sale. Fleck is a Dutch company founded by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive, the famous white-suited entrepreneurs who woke up Mike once at his house to pitch their startup. The duo also run the Next Web conference (disclosure: I was the moderator last year) and blog, which they’ll now be focusing on. I asked Boris, why Fleck never really took off and why he wants to unload it. His answer:
Dare Obasanjo, a Microsoft employee and the son of a former President of Nigeria, doesn’t enjoy it when people disagree with him. I found that out in 2007 when Obasanjo 
The team behind 
It’s unlikely Google will ever find another money machine as efficient as search advertising, which accounts for 
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