Tumblr feels that Yahoo’s $1.1 billion offer as “too low” and view it as “only a first offer”, according to sources close to to acquisition talks. Yahoo may have to significantly increase the offer to close the deal. An acquisition by some tech giant is likely in the cards for Tumblr, though, as sources say the company only has a few months of cash runway left.

The news comes after AllThingsD reported Yahoo was in advanced talks to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, and the portal’s board of directors are set to meet on Sunday night to discuss the potential deal. Forbes reports that Facebook and Microsoft have also expressed interest in acquiring Tumblr. However, Forbes says that Yahoo has lock-up agreement arranged with Tumblr that prevents the blogging platform from holding a “bake-off” or bidding war for the right to buy it.

If Yahoo comes to the table with an insufficient offer, which our sources say $1.1 billion qualifies as, Tumblr may be able to reject it and shop itself around some more.

A few months ago Tumblr let several companies know it was interested in possibly being acquired. Yahoo was the first to come to the table with a firm number, say one of our sources. They say Tumblr is apprehensive about accepting the $1.1 billion cash offer, though. Considering the much smaller, younger Instagram’s acquisition price was supposed to be $1 billion (in cash and stock, though, which would eventually make it worth less), it seems reasonable that Tumblr would view $1.1 billion cash as a lowball.

Tumblr employees have been told that the company only has enough funds to operate for a few more months, as its costs far exceed the limited revenue it earns. Tumblr pulled in $13 million in 2012, but has accelerated its advertising offering in hopes of hitting $100 million in revenue this year. The money’s not coming in fast enough to support its expenses though. Employees were recently told not to be concerned, though, because the company is expecting to be bought.

Of course, Yahoo might be able to push the deal through for $1.1 billion or just a little more depending on how the acquisition is structured. If it promises Tumblr’s CEO David Karp he can retain control of the company, provides the right retention bonuses, or won’t force Tumblr to shoehorn in integrations with Yahoo’s other properties, Tumblr may be more receptive.

If Yahoo successfully buys the startup, it could inject some much needed “cool”, youthful energy, and design sense into the aging tech giant. The acquisition might not be so popular with Tumblr’s users, though, who range from young hipsters to diehard Internet aficionados. Many thought Instagram’s userbase would balk at its acquisition by Facebook, but the photo sharing service has continued to grow, offering some hope to Yahoo and Tumblr if their deal closes.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

IDC today was the latest to publish its numbers on smartphone market shares after the major handset makers released Q1 earnings, and like Gartner, Strategy Analytics and the rest, it underscores the power of Google’s Android platform at the moment: Android OEMs shipped 162.1 million handsets in the quarter, giving the platform a 75% share of total worldwide shipments, while Apple’s 37.4 million devices put it at an increasingly distant second position at 17.3%. Microsoft’s Windows Phone, driven primarily by its partner Nokia (79% of all WP shipments), grew the most of all platforms, with a rise of 133.3%, but that still puts it at a single-digit share, 3.2% on 7 million devices shipped.

That meant that Microsoft has now overtaken BlackBerry, which declined by just over 35% with 6.5 million shipments, ending with a 2.9% market share.

Important to note that IDC specifies that this is devices shipped, not sold. Some analysts have told me that the two are effectively interchangeable terms, but shipped is also potentially a more optimistic figure: it points to how well retailers and carriers think certain models are likely to sell in the quarter ahead. Occasionally these can lag compared to how well certain handset makers are actually doing if a device ends up selling worse than expected.

What “shipped” numbers like IDC’s say is that Android and iOS continue to, more or less, remain the only games in town in terms of how confident sales channels feel about shifting devices, with other platforms relegated to niche status. This is something that companies like BlackBerry are trying to change, as evidenced by a recent deal to extend a $256 million loan to Telefonica for purchasing BlackBerry devices.

IDC’s numbers show that together these two platforms accounted for nearly 200 million units (199.5 million) shipped, up 59% over a year ago. The smaller players are not to be dismissed, though. Not only is Windows Phone the most rapidly rising of all platforms at the moment, but IDC notes that BlackBerry’s BB10 new range have hit 1 million shipped devices this quarter.

But turnaround will only come with that kind of growth being sustained. “Given the relatively low volume generated, the Windows Phone camp will need to show further gains to solidify its status as an alterative to Android or iOS,” writes Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC.

For the time being, the message to users, and to app developers, is that these are the platforms where you want to be. Considering how key content has been as a route to attracting users to these devices, that will continue to pose a challenge for the smaller players.

As with Strategy Analytics’ numbers yesterday detailing the profitability of different smartphone platforms in the quarter, IDC notes that Samsung is by far the “clear leader” in Android. It notes that it had a 41.1% market share. As a sign of the ongoing fragmentation of players on the platform, no other single OEM had more than a single-digit percentage market share after that, “and an even longer list of vendors with market share less than one percent.” The fact that it’s still “free” to license Android, and relatively easy to modify it for a more custom experience, will mean that it will continue to be the platform of choice for OEMs looking for more revenues from the ongoing boom in smartphones.

As we saw in Apple’s earnings earlier in the quarter, the company’s sales of iPhones are at an all-time high, but in comparison to the growth of the rest of the market, it’s actually off, with market share down nearly six percentage points. There is some feeling that part of this is due to the fact that the platform appears stale compared to all the change going on elsewhere with software and hardware features, news handsets and more. “Although demand remains strong worldwide, the iOS experience has remained largely the same since the first iPhone debuted in 2007,” IDC notes, pointing to a “massive overhaul” that appears to be on the cards with iOS 7.

IDC also notes that over the last year, shares of the biggest platforms have fluctuated, although Android’s current 75% is the highest in a year. Against that, the last time that Android approached 75%, in Q3 2012, Apple’s share was only 14.5% as people held out for a new iPhone model. That shows that Apple’s growth this quarter was at the expense of declines for other smaller platforms.

photo: flickr

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

AirWatch, the startup that helps businesses manage security and more on employees’ mobile devices, is today announcing that it has raised another $25 million, led by Accel with participation also from Insight Venture Partners. The funds come as part of an expanded Series A round, originally for $200 million, which the company announced with a splash in February during Mobile World Congress. This Series A is the first outside money raised by AirWatch, and values the company at just over $1 billion, according to sources.

Both AirWatch’s CEO, John Marshall, and Ryan Sweeney, the partner who led the round at Accel, tell TechCrunch that this latest expansion of the round was made at the same valuation. It comes just weeks after rival Good Technology raised a $50 million round and is preparing for an IPO.

As with the earlier $200 million, this latest injection will be used to help AirWatch build out its business, add more services, and quite possibly make some acquisitions along the way.

Marshall declined to say what areas acquisitions might be in, other than to note that they would be strategic investments to expand product lines and customers. “I think we will look very carefully at adjacent technology or tuck-in acquisitions,” he told TechCrunch. “I would not want to answer [who they are]. The three companies that I am looking at right now are all doing different things, and I don’t want to tip off our competitors.”

One area where AirWatch sees a particularly bright spot is in what Marshall refers to as “containerization of content,” in which services exist not just to manage whole devices but to be able to make more sophisticated services to partition and control particular services, such as a specific suite of enterprise apps or even one particular area of data. “The largest portion of our business is still in the enterprise mobility management space, including devices as well as apps,” he said. “The growing part of the business is around being able to secure the content in a digital locker. We see a lot of growth in extending that out within our customer base. I can’t emphasize how important this is in our strategy.” It will also lead AirWatch further also into desktop services, supporting not just mobile devices and platforms but the services and PCs used to run things when workers are not running around.

The funding, and AirWatch’s moves to grow, are signs of a consolidation afoot in the area of mobile enterprise services, specifically around mobile device management and the larger “BYOD” trend, where workers are following larger consumer trends using smartphones and tablets to do everything online, and are increasingly bringing in their devices to the office to help them work there, too. Up to now, there have been dozens of companies working in this space, both big (like AirWatch and Good) and small.

“We think this market is going to play out quickly,” said Marshall. “There are haves and have-nots, and we want to be the market leader and continue increasing that separation. Consolidation is absolutely on the cards.”

He also says that will play out not just in terms of services and winning business but also in terms of funding. “The VCs are getting pretty smart and are realizing that the winners are shaping up. That will cut off capital for those players who are not in the leading pack. Some will be acquired, and some will disappear.”

Indeed, Sweeney at Accel agrees on the investing front, but adds that the company is also gearing up to look for more mobile enterprise investments going forward.

“We’re actively looking in mobile enterprise,” he told TechCrunch. “This is the largest investment we’ve made in mobile enterprise to date but [the trend of] folks bringing phones and tablets from home to work and leaving with your PC in your pocket are still growing, so we think mobile enterprise will be a growth area for 3-5 years for sure.”

Marshall says AirWatch is currently adding 500 business per month, which would put its current client base at around 7,500, with some of the bigger names including Delta, Lowe’s; United Airlines; Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); Skanska; PepsiCo; Henry Ford Health System; Mount Sinai Medical Center; Best Buy and Abbott Laboratories. The company boasts four of the top five global Fortune companies; the top four global energy companies; six of the top 10 global airlines; six of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies; seven of the top 10 global consumer product companies; five of the top 10 global luxury goods companies; two of the top three global hotel groups; nine of the top 10 U.S. retailers and three of the top five U.S. medical device companies.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google took the lid off of its new version of Maps at I/O 2013 today, which is a dramatic redesign of the long-standing navigation and place-finding software across all platforms. We got a chance to go hands-on with the new Maps, which is still a beta product, with access only given out to a few select users so far. In the video above, you check it out in action as a Google rep gives us a walkthrough.

The new Google Maps takes a bunch of stuff that Google has been working on from Knowledge Graph to make, as it put it during the keynote, billions of apps for billions of people. That means you get a lot more personalization pulled into the experience, surfacing local landamrks that are likely important to you, as well as one-click directions from stored locations like your home address. Places frequented by your friends and acquaintances will also be pulled in to complete the picture.

The whole experience on a Chromebook Pixel was fast, responsive and remarkably intuitive. All the new touch controls seem perfectly designed for use with the Pixel’s touchscreen display, and reduce dramatically the number of steps required to do things like call up directions. The in-building panoramas and 360-degree images are very impressive, and truly do give you a sense of both the inside and outside of a location, but don’t expect the images to be all that comprehensive for most locations at launch.

Overall this looks like an awesome improvement to the Maps experience, and it’s hard to see any spots where the progress isn’t a good thing. But it’s very different, so expect some pushback when Google does eventually push this live to a wider audience.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

This is the evening before Google’s I/O developer conference and there’s already been quite a bit of chatter about what the company will announce and share at the conference. One important thing to note is that there will only be one keynote this year, a mega three-hour session where Google will talk to the attendees about all of the important things that have happened over the past year and what to expect moving forward.

For the first time in a long time, Google will be coming into the conference as a hot property in its entirety, a company that has many things going on that are getting attention. The truly important part of this I/O, which will be the third after Larry Page’s return to the CEO role, is that Google is much more than just a search company.

Last year, the focus was on the future, with Sergey Brin’s Project Glass stealing the show. While there was other interesting news, such as the Nexus 7, Chromebox and ahem…Q, the focus and hype were generated by the exciting future that Googlers were concocting in Mountain View. Page missed last year’s I/O, due to voice issues that he addressed today, and we’ve reached out to Google to see if he’ll be keynoting tomorrow.

This year, all the cards are on the table, and the new Google — Google Now, if you will — has to show developers that focusing on building on top of Google properties is the smart bet, even more so than for its rival Apple. Why? Because Google touches everything and everyone. From moms to CEOs, geeks to elementary school students, Google is surrounding us with the tools we need every day.

The best way to look at Google right now is by slicing up the company into three categories, something that we’ve never been able to do with them before.

Utility

Google started as a search company and this remains its No. 1 asset. It’s through this product that the company has figured out unique ways to collect and display information, something that has benefitted everything it has done since. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t gone to the web to “Google” something that they couldn’t figure out on their own. That utility has gotten social, thanks to Google+. Additionally, Gmail search results have been brought into the fray and other items unique to the person performing the search.

The pure utility of search has also carried over to its Maps product, a space that Google handily owns. Once again, the first problem of figuring out how to collect geo location information all over the world was only part of the solution to how to provide a tool that people could rely on. It’s rumored that Maps will be getting a facelift, potentially being announced this week. From the looks of what has been leaked, Google wants to make your map experience a bit more personal and social, too.

The unification of Google’s productivity tools, another important utility, shows that Page wants consumers to feel like the company has something for all of their needs. Instead of hunting around for Google Spreadsheets, people simply have to go to Google Drive and create the document of their choice. That was a long time in coming. Ahead of I/O, the company announced further unification by bumping up everyone’s free storage, as well as giving them one place to buy more space.

You have to have a browser to view the web, right? Well, Google has consumers covered with Chrome. The browser has become more of a platform for developers to build upon, giving them the tools to let consumers perform actions that they normally would in a tab on a website. This browser has become an operating system for its laptop and desktop devices.

The Google Now feature is a perfect example of how all of this utility is being wrapped up into one useful experience, finding its way to every device and OS to serve as your personal assistant.

Communication

Gmail has been continually improved, an approach that Page mentioned during Google’s last earnings call, but has become a bit cluttered with all of the other communication functionality that the company offers. Within Gmail, you’ll find Gchat, Voice and some Google+ features here and there. It needs work, and the rumored unification of chat could be a right step forward.

Eventually, no matter what Google product you’re using, you should be able to start and engage in a chat. This means that if you’re performing a search, the chat experience should follow you.

Google Voice is still a product out on its own, doing well, but should be folded into Google’s overall chat strategy at one point. The optimal experience for a user is to go to one app to contact someone by voice, video or text and then do it without thinking about whether they’re using the right tool. Google’s not there yet, and the product will suffer over time if left dangling.

Google+ on the other hand, has been leveraged as a way to tie all of Google’s products together socially. If you want to share a document from Drive, you can share it with your circles. If you find a cool place to eat on Google Places, you can share it with a circle. The concept of “circles” as a way to organize your contact list is the core purpose of Google+, with its stream and photo capabilities still serving as “nice to haves.” I would suspect at some point that you’ll be able to send an “Email,” which is just another type of message, to a circle from Gmail, much like you can from Google+. The company isn’t worried about competition, so thinking of Plus as a Facebook competitor is a mistake.

Mobile

Both of the categories above are converging with Google’s most important focus, mobile. It’s open-source strategy with Android is paying off, with 71 percent of all smartphones sold in Q1 using the OS. It’s not just phones that fall under mobile, though; it’s tablets, laptops, Glass and gaming devices like OUYA.

At I/O, we expect to see a small refresh of its tablet and phone line, with incremental improvements being added. It’s not the time for whiz-bang features, as more focus will be given to the operating system itself. The Nexus 7 is a decent alternative to the iPad, but the Nexus 10 never really got off the ground. A lot of that had to do with the fact that it’s Wi-Fi-only, and it’s possible that 3G/4G could be added to make the device more attractive.

At the end of the day, all of the utility and communication strengths will shine brightest on devices that you aren’t sitting at for eight hours a day. Picking up a conversation that you started on your desktop, finishing it on your tablet and then picking it up again in the morning from your phone is powerful. It’s possible with Google’s products now, but it’s not apparent to consumers. That’s why Google has been so focused on the presentation of its products and not just the integration.

What to expect this week at I/O

Want a visual? Here you go:

Expect less bravado and more focus from Google. While the three-hour keynote will probably be split up among different products, expect to hear some of the same messaging. The idea of making things easier for users, more delightful and accessible by everyone, everywhere will be the battle cry.

Google wants you to use its products, and it doesn’t care where and how you use them. Whether it’s on a video game system, a refrigerator or Glass, the company has something for everyone, whether they’re at work, in the car, in their bedroom or living room or out on a hike. We’ve been surrounded, but now it’s Google’s turn to tell us why that’s a good thing and how it’s easier than ever to get something out of it.

We might hear some gaming and music news, but expect it to fit within Google’s focused mission, and to not distract.

The Mountain View giant is a busy company, but all of its products and efforts are finally moving in the same direction under Page.

We’ll be updating you with all of the information on our live blog tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled.

[Photo credits: Flickr, Flickr, Flickr]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A handwritten note is becoming a lost art in the age of email, Facebook, SMS, and more messaging apps than you can count. But if anything, that rarity has only led to increase its value and perceived thoughtfulness, even as our penmanship skills decline. Today, a startup called Postable is bringing back the “handwritten” note with a service that allows you to type in handwriting fonts, then print to high-quality card stock.

Postable got its start back in 2011, when co-founders and lifelong friends Scott Potash and Jesse Blockton grew tired of all the thank you notes they had to painstakingly handwrite. However, instead of immediately launching a service that took thank you card creation to the web, they first decided to target one of the bigger hurdles with building such a service: the fact that people don’t have each others’ mailing addresses anymore.

In March 2012, the team launched a free, online address book service. “The easiest way we thought to get people’s addresses would be to ask them to give them to you,” explains Blockton. “It’s just a simple, friendly crowdsourced address book.”

This original service, which became popular with brides, new parents, and others about to send out a lot of thank yous, provided users with a custom URL (www.postable.com/name) which they could send out to friends and family along with a personal request for mailing information. Recipients would click the link, fill out a form, and later the complete address book could be downloaded in variety of formats, including Excel, as a text file, or they could just print labels directly.

This free service grew to “tens of thousands” of users, though the company won’t disclose exact figures.

Today, the second phase of the plan comes into play, as Postable launches thank you cards. At launch, there are around 100 different cards to choose from, sourced from 24 different indie designers with whom Postable has a revenue sharing deal touted to be at “double the industry standard.”

When you go to type out a card on Postable.com, you can select from one of 12 different handwriting fonts, or 10 different stylistic fonts, if you’d rather not try to give your card the appearance of a handwritten note.

The cards themselves can be printed on a few different card stocks, including Crane’s Lettra, cotton paper, and a “brown bag” recycled card.

The service itself has also been designed to make writing out your notes as easy – if not easier – than doing it by hand. After you click on a recipient’s name, Postable autofills the “dear so-and-so” portion of your note, for example, and the spacing and font size automatically adjust as you type.

Cards cost $2, plus standard postage, which is often less than the “real” cards you buy individually at the store. However, frugal shoppers know they can find packs of lesser-quality thank you cards for less at any drug store – so Postable may not work for those pinching pennies.

A number of services have stepped in to make letter-writing and card-sending more convenient for those of us whose cursive skills are largely forgotten. For example, services like Red Stamp, Sincerely, Apple’s Cards, Lettrs, Inkly, and many more help fulfill this need. But some of these services come at the space with a mobile-first mentality, in the form of an app. Postable is a bit different because it’s not targeting the one-off note jotted on the go (though that’s supported), so much as it’s going after those who have a mountain of cards to send – such as after a wedding, for example.

That tends to work better on the web, with a larger keyboard to type upon. That being said, Postable plans to release native apps in time. But for now, the service works well on iPad in the browser.

By the end of the year, the company also plans to offer a broader selection of styles and support for different occasions beyond just the “thank you” note.

Based in New York, Postable has raised $500,000 from friends and family.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

“Power is a lot like real estate. It’s all about location, location, location.” — Frank Underwood, House of Cards

At this very moment, Mark Zuckerberg’s political lobby, FWD.us, is probably taken aback at how reviled it has become, both from the public and its own members. After all, there are countless political technology lobbies, including Facebook’s own Political Action Committee, which routinely offer Republican candidates campaign cash for quid pro quo political favor. So, why, after discovering FWD.us indirectly supporting the controversial Keystone Pipeline initiative, have would-be supporters flooded their Facebook page with scathing comments, and its A-list supporters, such as Tesla’s Elon Musk, ditched the group?

Unlike other lobbies, FWD.us burst on to the scene with a very public op-ed from its celebrity founder, promising to galvanize the latent civic passions of Silicon Vally’s netizens in a noble crusade to advance the knowledge society. While one hand extended towards grassroots supporters, the other reached into its wallet pocket and discretely doled out funds to controversial candidates.

There’s a reason most lobbies don’t bother with grassroots activism: communities don’t get excited about the kinds of soul-crushing moral compromise necessary in DC politics. So, when FWD.us rolled up with millions in hand claiming to be the voice of the technologists, those who felt misrepresented freaked out.

Even more confusing, when confronted, FWD.us chose to do something no other major organization in technology has done: it remained silent. Even the notoriously tight-lipped Apple holds a press conference after public uproar.

Californians haven’t been become jaded to the kinds of secrecy common for Wall Street banks and campaign SuperPACs. The unfazed backdoor dealings caricatured in Netflix’s (addicting) House of Cards series may work for lobbies based in our nation’s capitol, but Californians evidently won’t tolerate it in their backyard.

“I revised the parameters of my promise.” – Frank Underwood

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams tweeted a link to a scathing blog post from former Branch CEO, Josh Miller, explaining,

“In service of noble causes, FWD.us is employing questionable lobbying techniques, misleading supporters, and not being transparent about the underlying values and long-term intentions of the organization. More discouragingly, the leaders of the technology industry (and of FWD.us) have built their careers on bringing meaningful change to the world. They should be doing the same in Washington.”

FWD.us would-be grassroots supporters agree, “Will Fwd.us prostitute climate destruction & other values to get a few engineers hired & get immigration reform?”, wrote one commenter on their Facebook page.

Folks in San Francisco had a sense that FWD.us understood technologists’ natural aversion to Washington culture, “People in tech have often felt a cultural disconnect from the political process, which is a shame considering we are naturally idealistic,” went a press release of FWD.us’s launch last month.

True to their word, unlike any other lobby, they were building tools for grassroots activism, with the audacious aim of bottling the rare Internet flash mob protests that brought down the entertainment industry-funded, Stop Online Piracy Act, and helped smartphone taxi service, Uber, overcome the Washington DC regulators.

But, unlike Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is actually planning a social media campaign to push for Immigration reform, FWD.us’s grassroots promise is nowhere to be found.

“There’s a value in having secrets.” – Frank Underwood

Like many of us at TechCrunch, tech luminaries have been begging FWD.us for a hint of transparency, “It’d be easier to believe that FWD.us will be a positive force if we knew the full breadth of its agenda,” wrote popular blogger and entrepreneur, Anil Dash. Unfortunately, they refuse to talk to anyone. Even at our own Disrupt conference, Director Joe Green didn’t (or couldn’t) be interviewed, instead opting for a generic story about the value of immigration reform.

See, their strategy feels like patronizing, as though us overly-idealistic Californians can’t possible deal with the realities of DC politicking. As Dash concludes, not only can we handle the truth, we’re begging for a dose of reality, if it’s the best way forward,

“It’s already clear that with FWD.us, the tech industry is going to have to reckon with exactly how real the realpolitik is going to get. If we’re finally moving past our innocent, naive and idealistic lack of engagement with the actual dirty dealings of legislation, then let’s try to figure out how to do it without losing our souls.”

“Friends make the worst enemies.” – Frank Underwood

What have been the results?–near unanimous condemnation from every corner of Silicon Valley. Just last week, superstar innovator Elon Musk, made a very public departure, after a list of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, boycotted Facebook over FWD.us-funded ads that praised Republicans for supporting the Keystone pipeline (below)

Ironically, the group can’t post a single update on Facebook without being flooded with angry comments. Just 18 hours ago, after FWD.us posted about a congressional immigration hearing, 50% of the comments are about Keystone, “How can you justify completely selling out on he keystone pipeline in order to further your own immigration agenda? This is politics at its worst.”

In other words, FWD.us poisoned its only mechanism for grassroots activism: social media. Forget Twitter, forget Youtube, forget Tumblr. Every conceivable social platform permits open dialog, which has now become the bane of their existence.

A Way FWD (Pun Intended)

When we first wrote about FWD.us, the reader comments were largely positive. Most readers (including myself) were excited to see what a team of technology titans could accomplish. But, since then, the suspect secrecy is killing their trustworthiness.

Their calculation is clear: a win on immigration reform will absolve their sins. They’re wrong. Since they’ve chosen to mimic other lobbies, their accomplishments will be indistinguishable. So, each of their investors could just as easily fund a tech lobby employing the same tactics without the public heat.

Personally, I like the organization and its mission. We routinely advocate for many of the same issues and carry the voices of their partners. But, evidently, FWD.us underestimated just how little tolerance their supporters have for compromising the value of truthfulness.

I  understand the consequences of writing this piece: when Joe Green eventually does speak, it certainly won’t be with me. But, until then, I’ll leave them with one thought. If FWD.us is so committed to traditional DC politics, perhaps they should also take Frank Underwood’s advice on transparency, “There is no better way to overpower a trickle of doubt than a flood of naked truth.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

“House Of Cards” proved that great, exclusive content can create loyal customers. While Facebook isn’t about to produce TV shows, it tells me that it plans to ramp up production of its Facebook Live original programming starting with a talk with Star Trek celebrities today at 5:15 p.m. PST. Comedian Andy Samberg will interview film director JJ Abrams and classic cast member and social media maven George Takei.

Randi Zuckerberg, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, started Facebook Live in 2010. A website and Facebook app powered by Livestream, Facebook Live streams talks and offers an archive of past video clips. Users can discuss the videos in real time with other users and ask questions. Facebook Live moderators then pick from submitted questions, name-check the people who ask them, and pose them to the celebrities.

It featured Randi’s interviews with celebrities, as well as instructional talks on Facebook’s products and marketing tools. Later it would host Facebook’s election coverage, including Barack Obama’s town hall talk at Facebook headquarters in 2011. Over the years, Oprah Winfrey, Vin Diesel, Madonna, astronaut Ron Garan, and Israeli President Shimon Peres all came on the air.

For the last six months, though, Facebook Live has been pretty quiet. Since Bravo’s Andy Cohen interviewed Rihanna in November, the only video it’s added was from the Facebook Home launch event. While fascinating to tech insiders, there wasn’t much wide appeal.

But now, the social network is putting Facebook Live back in gear. A Facebook spokesperson for the project tells me “Facebook Live is something we’ll be utilizing more.” While more shoots haven’t been lined up, they should come at a brisker pace.

Why invest in original programming? “The purpose of Facebook Live is to give fans an opportunity to interact with public figures and give the public figures a global platform to present how they are using Facebook [or are engaged in conversations happening on Facebook] in an authentic way,” is the rather dry answer I got from the spokesperson.

But digging a bit deeper, Facebook Live accomplishes several strategic goals for the team at 1 Hacker Way. First, it can turn fans of the stars that Live brings on air into more frequent Facebook users. On the flip side, it can turn celebrities into more hard-core Facebook content creators. Facebook wants to be the place where people follow their favorite public figures, but it needs them posting frequently.

Most importantly, though, it demonstrates Facebook’s potential as a live events discussion platform. Becoming the second screen to important global events can generate tons of time-on-site and engagement. This has historically been Twitter’s domain thanks to its unfiltered, real-time feed, but Facebook wants a piece of the pie.

If you have a great time chatting with other Star Trek fans today, maybe you’ll choose Facebook to discuss the next Star Trek TV show premiere rather than on its 140-character competitor. With the potential to promote them to a billion people, Facebook shouldn’t have much trouble getting the world’s VIPs into the revamped Facebook Live studio.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Are you ready for Donald Trump to (not really) give you (not real) money for your (not really) amazing project? Well, (not really his) new site, FundAnything, is ready to take your money!

The new funding site is (not really) run by Trump (it is really headed up by the Bill Zanker, founder of the Trump-infested Learning Annex) but darn it if it doesn’t look like the Donald won’t give you cash if you ask him nice!

People do not assume this but more than anything else, I like helping people. Be at Trump Tower at 11 AM today.—
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 08, 2013

The site began its life/death cycle today with typical Trump flair. This morning the Trumpster tweeted that he was about give out loads of cash on the street because, presumably, he has nothing better to do on a Wednesday. However, he is really giving out money to pre-selected people and some folks pulled from the crowd. Arguably, his attempts at charity, though mendacious and baldly noble, are noble. From the press release:

The rules are sufficiently abstract but similar to Indiegogos, at least in spirit. FundAnything charges a 9% fee on the contributions you collect if your project isn’t fully funded. It takes 5% on projects that are funded. There’s also a processing fee of 3%.

Will FundAnything be successful? Well, considering they’ve overtly borrowed the site design of the two leading platforms, Indiegogo and Kickstarter, and, more importantly, have a big picture of Donald Trump on the front page I seriously doubt success is in the cards. Startups that hire “stars” to flog their launches are usually the worst kind of startups simply because this suggests a level of self-regard and showmanship that turns off early adopters and draws all the wrong kind of customers. I could, for example, imagine FundAnything attempting a TV campaign based on the premise that Trump will fund your stuff. Those suckered into the site will slowly realize that Trump, like a dark, necrotic god, is powerless to help them.

Until they shutter this mess, stare into his eyes, mortals, and weep. He is Trump, avatar of Mammon. All hail!

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

For developers who wish to introduce payment services through their website or mobile apps, there are any number of payment processors available. Companies like Stripe offer up APIs which help developers quickly integrate payments into their applications, without having to build out non-core functionality themselves.

But what about developers who want to be able to take payments directly, like in real-life? On that front, the options are much more limited. While Square and PayPal and Intuit have done a good job of lining up small businesses to use its card reader and Register point-of-sale system, those customers are stuck using the platform provided to them. Those who wish to develop their own custom or branded solutions are out of luck when it comes to taking real-world payments.

Enter CardFlight, which is launching with an encrypted, Square-like card reader of its own, as well as an SDK and APIs that will allow developers to create apps and take “card-present” payments on their mobile apps. Those apps can then securely be used to swipe cards, and have payments appear in their existing merchant accounts.

CardFlight CEO Derek Webster tells me that, despite the focus on e-commerce and mobile commerce applications, about 90 percent of credit card transactions still happen with a swipe. With that in mind, the company is hoping to make it easier for developers to build apps and for businesses to use apps with so-called card-present transactions. To do so, they need only add a few lines of code to those apps.

There’s also the CardFlight dongle, which is just like other credit-card dongles provided by Square, or PayPal, or Intuit. It’s encrypted, and safe and secure and PCI-compliant and all that.

The developer toolset is processor-agnostic, which lets developers pick from a whole bunch of existing merchant accounts. And, it’s integrated with Stripe to enable developers who use Stripe for their stored credit card payments to also accept payments from people who wanna swipe their cards.

All of that would allow a chain restaurant, for instance, to build its own applications and integrated POS systems. Or for event organizers to build (non-Eventbrite) apps for selling tickets at the door to their local venues. Or for CRM apps to enable card payments for in-person sales applications. Or other stuff like that. Really, the possibilities are kind of endless.

CardFlight is now entering into private beta, with a number of developers already ready to start using its SDK in building their apps. Wanna be one of them? Go here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch