The platform wars are over. Long live the Web. That was the basic message delivered by Jeff Huber, Google’s vice president of engineering, in a ten-minute presentation at Web 2.0 a few minutes ago. His talk was nominally about widgets (which Google calls Gadgets). Huber noted that over 100,000 sites [...]
It didn’t take long for all the media companies to respond to Google’s launch earlier this week of its copyright fingerprinting system on YouTube. Today, they announced a set of limp-wristed “guidelines” that both technology and media companies should abide by in order to protect copyrighted content going forward. Companies who signed [...]
Have you or a loved one been injured in a car accident? Suing TechCrunch? To answer these questions, soon-to-launch SueEasy.com is hoping you turn to them before the white pages, FindLaw, or ratings sites like Avvo. They’re currently in a private beta, tweaking the service.The site is kind of a reverse directory for lawyers that’s [...]
LeWeb3, a conference in Paris about Europe’s most exciting new startups, is soliciting applications for a competition they will be holding on the first day of the event in December.If you want to present your startup at the conference, submit an application to LeWeb3 by Monday, October 22nd at 5:00 PM PT. Conference organizers will [...]
One of my earliest memories of the internet comes from elementary school where I remember seeing PointCast shown on our classroom computers. PointCast was a screensaver popular in the mid-90s that displayed news stories pulled in from over the internet. This hot Web 1.0 service died off in large part due to bandwidth limitations and [...]
Boston-based StylePath launches today with the goal of making the experience of shopping for stylish items, like jewelry and chaises, more personal. StylePath mainly differentiates itself from other online stores by providing a patented system that learns customers’ aesthetic preferences and recommends products that cater to them. The system works by first asking you to [...]
Now that eBay’s Skype write-down has caused it to take a $936 million loss last quarter and founder Niklas Zennstrom is out, the question is what will eBay do with Skype. According to one source, the remaining Skype/eBay management team is holing up in London this week to try to figure out how to [...]
Microsoft just demoed on stage at the Web 2.0 conference a slick Silverlight application development service called Popfly, which just opened up in beta. Popfly lets anyone, even non-coders, create web mashups without writing a single line of code. It’s all drag-and-drop in the browser (based on Silverlight, Microsoft’s answer to Flash/Flex and [...]
It’s time for another TechCrunch party (my first as co-editor). This time we’re taking TechCrunch on the road and hosting our first meet-up in Boston with the help of the IDG Ventures Boston. Like our recent event in Silicon Valley, we expect this to be a great networking event and a ton of [...]
Further to our earlier story on visitors to Google Blogsearch being redirected to Baidu in China, new reports have surfaced that would indicate that China has unilaterally blocked all three major search engines in China and is redirecting all requests to Baidu.Digital Marketing Blog posts that all requests to Yahoo.com and sub-sites are being redirected [...]
As Google expands their social mapping features, competitors are regrouping and refocusing. Kleiner Perkins backed Platial, headquartered in Portland, is announcing the acquisition of chief competitor Frappr this morning. Frappr co-founder Kun Gao will join Platial as part of the deal.Platial CEO Di-Ann Eisnor says the combined companies will reach 15 million unique users per [...]
Comedy Central will today launch a dedicated website for “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” that is designed to offer fans free video clips from the show.Although it would be easy to mock Comedy Central’s I can’t believe 2004 called launch of free Daily Show clips, the offering is slightly better than it first appears; [...]
CMS provider Interwowen has acquired New York City based Optimost for $52 million in an all cash deal.Optimost provides web optimization services for clients including Ask.com, Auto Trader, Delta Air Lines, FAO Schwarz, Lenovo, and MGM Mirage.Interwoven said that Optimost’s software-as-a-service model will strengthen Interwoven’s offerings by adding real-time multivariable testing and Website optimization to [...]
There are two main startups trying to become the ‘YouTube for documents’, notably Scribd and Docstoc. Newly launched edocr, coming out of the UK, does something similar, but with a twist, reports TechCrunch UK.Edocr lets you upload your document and then allow people to download, share or embed it via a Flash interface on any [...]
