Several news outlets today wrongly reported that Anonymous Antisec hackers had leaked “newly available” Facebook law enforcement guidelines that explain how and what data can be obtained by officials with a subpoena, warrant, or court order. In fact, many versions of the outdated guides were already widely available thanks to an Electronic Frontier Foundation Freedom of Information Act request, as well as other sources.
Though previously available and out of date, the new coverage about how Facebook provides user information when obliged by law could stoke fears about data privacy and Big Brother. By being more public with its law enforcement, guidelines Facebook could have avoided seemingly like it had something worth “leaking”. → Read More
As AllThingsD reported in September, travel search engine Kayak has put its IPO on hold until market conditions improve. Kayak filed its S-1 for a public offering nearly a year ago. Today, the company just filed a new S-1 with its revenue numbers from the third quarter ended September 30, 2011.
During the most recent quarter, Kayak posted $61.16 million in revenue, up 28 percent from the same quarter in 2010. The company also increased revenue slightly from the second quarter 2011, which came in at $56.7 million.
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Yesterday, Bloomberg published a story stating that Apple had made a major (and, frankly, somewhat surprising) change to its App Store policies: it was going to begin allowing game publishers to sell bundles of games as monthly subscriptions, as opposed to a la carte. Historically all games on the App Store have been sold as one-off purchases (or for free), and they can generate further revenue by offering in-app goods and services.
But last week, game developer Big Fish Games introduced an app with different model. Gamers would purchase the app, and, for $6.99 a month, they’d have access to “dozens” of games within that application (in other words, each game would not require a separate download). Such a model could potentially be a big deal for other gaming companies like Zynga, which could establish ‘hub’ apps rather than having to launch a new app for each game.
As it turns out, that doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon. → Read More
Good news people who are really curious about Quora growth! You might one day be reading an article like this about Quora …
Because Quora has hired a former Twitter and Facebook guy, Andy Johns, to focus on user growth and engagement. Johns, who tweets under the apropos username @ibringtraffic, spent a year and four months at Twitter, two years at Facebook and is now taking his speciality to the fancy Q&A startup.
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Most of the communications apps that have gotten big on smartphones have been built by well-established companies that have existing user bases they can promote to, with Facebook, Twitter and Skype being the top examples. The other successes have most often had venture money to help them cover advertising costs.
But a smaller startup has been climbing up the iTunes App Store and Android Market charges over the last few days. Called Voxer, it provides a walkie talkie push-to-talk voice service reminiscent of Nextel. Or, in modern parlance, it’s sort of like text messages but with voice instead of text. It’s basically a direct competitor to another startup, HeyTell, that we’ve covered, as well as TalkBox… and getting to be more of a competitor every day, judging by its recent trajectory.
The app has gone from #40 to #7 within the past week within the social networking category of the United States App Store, following its rise earlier this year in random other countries like Brazil and Saudi Arabia. It’s now a trend among many Twitter users, too. (Yeah, the social networking category isn’t especially big once you get past the leading web services, but this much growth for this type of app is unusual.) → Read More
Yesterday afternoon, we wrote about an Android developer who’d received a cease-and-desist letter from Carrier IQ, a company whose Android software he’d been investigating.
This morning, under the light of a dozen spotlights, Carrier IQ has retracted their C&D and publicly apologized to the developer. → Read More
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The consumer electronics search service Decide.com is teaming up with Consumer Reports on a new deals site which aims to help shoppers know what and when to buy new electronics. Although the companies are referring to the project as a “daily deals” outlet, they don’t mean “deals” in the sense of Groupon, Living Social or flash sale sites like Gilt or One Kings Lane.
Instead, the service is more like a blog/reviews site which features Consumer Reports’ product recommendations alongside Decide’s own data telling you when to buy the item in question. → Read More
Pro Tip: If your new business plan entails buying a bunch of domains that are clearly just one letter off from that of a major brand, you’re probably doing it wrong.
Such is the case for one gent from Illinois, who snatched up not one, not two, but six domains meant to look nearly identical to YouTube.com, filling them dubious surveys. As you’d expect, Google has now moved to seize the domains. → Read More
Guess who seems to be most interested in the plight of the 99%? “Jetset urbanites” according to Experian Hitwise, which used its Experian Mosiac audience profiling system to track traffic to Occupy movement sites from various consumer lifestyles, because hey, why not?
According to Experian Mosaic, which separates people into Starbucks-esque categories like “Gotham Blend,” “Dare to Dream,” “Aging of Aquarius” and “Bohemian Grove” (a little vomit just came up into my mouth), sites like occupywallstreet.org and others in the Occupy category were most visited in the past three months by “Jetset Urbanites,” a segment of the population that was “highly affluent, progressive and tends to live in major metropolitan areas” with a group of people known as “Colleges and Cafes” coming in second with regards to visits. Quelle surprise! → Read More
Alright folks. If you’re still young enough, immature enough, or bankless enough to own a piggy bank, it’s time to crack that thing open. Black Friday is (count ‘em) two days away, and if you don’t have a plan by now then let’s get to it.
In no particular order, here are some of the Black Friday gadget deals that stand out to us (some are still leaks and thus unverified, but we’ll make it clear which sales are official and which are still a bit mysterious). → Read More
Despite yesterday’s FQ3 earnings statement indicating that Pandora beat Wall Street projections and that it has abundant long-term growth opportunities, Pandora’s stock price fell 11.3% since yesterday to $10.51. This is likely because Pandora lowered its FQ4 guidance to a loss ($0.03) in earnings per share, worse than its $0.02 EPS for last quarter and Wall Street’s ($0.02) guidance for next quarter. Investors see Pandora as a momentum story, betting on it gradually but steadily growing towards significant profitability. The slightly grim guidance, due to increased investments which will go towards hiring more sales people, may have spooked some investors with a distaste for any signs of slowing momentum. → Read More
The primary focus for app developers, aside from making kick ass apps, is finding truly effective ways to monetize those apps, whether it be through targeted, location-enabled ad solutions, in-game purchases, or incentivized downloads. As freemium models proliferate, this stuff becomes increasingly important. The other piece of the puzzle is helping app creators manage and understand their user base, because with a more granular picture of who is using the app, where they are, how they’re using the app, and so on, developers can design better user experiences, and in turn, open up new monetization opportunities.
Appboy, a startup offering a free mobile software development toolkit (SDK) for developers, is trying to do just that. AppBoy, simply put, wants to enable app developers to expand, engage, and better understand their user base. And to help with that mission, the startup is today announcing that it has raised $1 million in seed funding. The investment was led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from Metamorphic Ventures, Accelerator Ventures, Bullpen Capital and T5 Capital. → Read More
The free-to-play model, while disparaged by some developers as exploitative of players, has certainly proved itself over and over to be financially sustainable if done right. And although I myself have paid a buck or two for extra in-game content myself, I have always found it hard to believe that there are people out there who will sink scores, hundreds, or thousands of dollars into their online personae.
No better proof of this than the news that’s propagating today: German gaming company Bigpoint, which operates a few free-to-play games, has sold 2000 (and counting) items just in the last few days – for the whopping price of €1000 each. Where is your horse armor now? → Read More
Apple’s largest retail store is under construction in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. It takes up an entire mezzanine level at one end of the grand hall where there used to be a restaurant. Currently, the construction site is boxed up and draped in black, but today they added a large digital sign with lettering that flips just like the signs showing the latest trains and tracks above the ticket booths.
I took the picture above this morning, which says simply: “Apple Store, Grand Central. Arriving Soon.” → Read More
People are all caught up in today’s Google Doodles but for all the wrong reasons. Yes, there’s a customizable turkey for the US and a fun sci-fi game for Europe. But did you notice the G+ button hovering below the turkey? Google is now using its most visible, accessible, viral element to get people to sign up and share on Google+. If worked into future Doodles, this could be quite fruitful.
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Email marketing software giant ExactTarget has just submitted its second S-1 for a public offering, seeking to raise as much as $100 million. In 2007, ExactTarget filed for an initial public offering but delayed its IPO plans and withdrew its application with the SEC to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol EXTG due to the recession. Clearly, the company has considered the current IPO climate to be more favorable.
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Walt Disney Studios and YouTube have struck deal which will bring hundreds of Disney movies to YouTube, starting today. The new partnership between the two companies includes movies from Disney, Disney-Pixar and DreamWorks Studios. The films, some of which have already arrived on YouTube, are available to rent starting at $1.99.
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Mobile app monetization platform Lunch Money, has raised $1 million in seed financing from Google Ventures, First Round Capital, Scott Banister, Baroda Ventures, David Sacks, Mike Jones, Kamran Pourzanjani and Alan Braverman. As part of the announcement, Lunch Money is also rebranding to Pocket Change.
As we wrote in our initial coverage of the Lunch Money, the startup offers a set of monetization and distribution tools for mobile game developers via an SDK than can be plugged into games. The platform’s initial products include a social leaderboard and a token system. The social leaderboard doesn’t recreate the social graph, but instead leverages user graphs across Facebook, Twitter and Game Center. It’s a simple ranking of your friends’ scores. → Read More
While smartphone adoption continues to pick up steam here in the U.S., new research from Strategy Analytics shows that China is hungrier for smartphones than we are. For the first time ever, China has pulled ahead of the United States in terms of the number of smartphones shipped. → Read More
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